Five Kurds win reduced homicide terms for German killing

Tue, 04 Jan 2011

Muenster, Germany - Five Kurdish men had their manslaughter sentences reduced Tuesday after a retrial in Germany for a lynching.

Judges in Muenster rejected a finding by an earlier trial that the stabbing death of a Kurdish man, 31, on a hardware mart carpark was an "honor killing." German courts treat honor killings as especially heinous and they receive the harshest punishment.

The verdict said the motive had in fact been the main offender's "combination of jealousy, hurt pride and disappointment that his former best friend had seduced his wife." He and his relations were jailed for 6 to 11 years for the August 2008 manslaughter.

Previously they had been given terms of 7 to 12 years, but an appeal court found fault with the sentencing.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/360696,homicide-terms-german-killing.html.