Trial opens over Leipzig car attack that killed 2, injured 8

A 34-year-old man went on trial in Leipzig on Monday charged with murder and 85 counts of attempted murder, over a car attack in the city's pedestrian zone on 4 May that killed 2 people and injured 8, prosecutors said. He is accused of accelerating his car to up to 90km/h and driving through the busy shopping street for about a minute, striking several pedestrians.

A 63-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man died in the attack. 6 other people aged between 21 and 87 were injured, 2 of them seriously: a 75-year-old man and an 84-year-old woman, prosecutors said. Several passers-by escaped only by jumping out of the way.

Prosecutors say the man, then 33, had firmly decided by the evening before the attack to run down people in his path. He stopped the car himself afterwards and let himself be arrested without resistance, and was initially taken to a psychiatric clinic.

Investigators said the man had been a voluntary patient at a psychiatric facility in the days before the attack and was discharged at his own request in late April. He had previously come to police attention over threats and defamation-related offences within his social circle. Interior Minister Armin Schuster said police had held a risk-assessment meeting and intervention talks with him, but found no grounds to detain him.

Days after the attack, it emerged the man may have signalled his intentions in April, writing to his wife that it had been "a long time since a car was driven into a crowd", Schuster said; police only learned of the message during the investigation. Prosecutors say the case shows no political or religious motive, and the trial will focus mainly on the question of his criminal responsibility, after a preliminary forensic-psychiatric assessment found no sign that it was reduced. He was moved from psychiatric care to pre-trial detention as a result.

The court plans to hear from a forensic psychiatrist along with traffic-analysis and forensic-medicine experts; 9 joint plaintiffs have joined the proceedings, and 28 trial days are scheduled until 7 July next year, a court spokesman said. Monday's opening session was expected to cover only the reading of the charges.

The attack prompted a nationwide debate on the security of German city centres. The Association of German Cities and Towns said such attacks could never be entirely prevented despite security measures, while Leipzig's mayor, Burkhard Jung, said he was shaken by the attack but that cities must remain places where people can meet; the city introduced extra security measures in the days afterward.