Life verdict for police murderer is legal, says German top court

The verdict handed down to a murderer of two police officers is the western German town of Kusel is final, Germany's highest court in Karlsruhe said on Friday.
In November 2022, a regional court in Kaiserlautern sentenced the then 39-year-old man to life imprisonment. He then lodged an appeal.
The particular seriousness of the crime, as ruled by the court, means he will not be given the chance for parole after 15 years in prison, as is often the case in Germany.
At the end of January 2022, the man killed a 24-year-old female police trainee and a 29-year-old male police commissioner with shots to the head on a remote district road in the Western Palatinate region near Kusel, according to the judge's ruling.
He had wanted to cover up his poaching, the court said. At the time of the crime, 22 freshly shot deer were allegedly lying in the van.
The crime caused nationwide shock.
The prosecution had said the crime had the nature of an "execution" and was therefore particularly serious.
The Kaiserslautern Regional Court found a secondary defendant, who was present on the night of the crime, guilty of complicity in commercial poaching.
However, the court did not impose a sentence because the 33-year-old had testified comprehensively before the trial began. At that time, it was said that this had "considerably mitigated the punishment and helped to clarify the facts."