There is a turning point in the murder case involving the killed police forces in Kusel. One of the suspects is no longer a murder suspect.
Kusel/Kaiserslautern – Around four weeks after the fatal shooting of a policewoman and her colleagues in the Kusel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, the Kaiserslautern public prosecutor dropped the murder charge against one of the two suspects. However, the arrest warrant against the 32-year-old for commercial poaching and obstruction of justice remains in place, the authority said on Tuesday.
“As I said from the beginning: The accusation of murder is not tenable. That’s what my client always said,” his defense attorney Christian Kessler told the Bild newspaper. The authorities now assume that the 38-year-old main perpetrator shot alone.
Fatal shots in Kusel: Murder charge against a suspect dropped
The main suspect in the case is Andreas S. from Spiesen-Elversberg in Saarland. The 38-year-old suspect was already known to the police for hunting poaching and getting away from a traffic accident. According to the investigators, the motive for the crime is presumably to cover up poaching.
At least two weapons — a shotgun and a hunting rifle — were used, prosecutors said. No fingerprints of the 32-year-old could be found on the two confiscated murder weapons. The 38-year-old alone left his mark on it. He is said to have fired five shots. According to the investigators, Andreas S. remains silent on the allegations. Investigators initially assumed that both suspects had fired.
After shots at police forces in Kusel: new details on suspects
According to the public prosecutor, investigations into the CVs revealed that the 38-year-old was a “very good marksman” and was able to reload his hunting rifle very quickly. He has shooting experience and, with a break between 2008 and 2012, has had a hunting license since 1999. This expired in March 2020 and was not extended. At that time, no more weapons were listed on his weapon license. The 32-year-old, on the other hand, had no evidence of shooting practice. He had neither a gun license nor a hunting license. He had never owned one in the past either.
At the end of January, the 24-year-old police officer was fatally shot, and her 29-year-old colleague was shot four times. The act caused great horror. (svw/sne/dpa/AFP)
