Germany: Driver who killed 5 in car rampage jailed for life

A German man was found guilty on Tuesday of murder and attempted murder for a high-speed car rampage in the southwestern city of Trier in December 2020 that killed five people and seriously injured more than a dozen.

The Trier regional court sentenced the 52-year-old man to life in prison and ordered that he be held in a secure psychiatric hospital.

German news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported that judges concluded the man, whose name wasn't released for privacy reasons, had intentionally zig-zagged through a pedestrian zone to kill or maim as many people as possible.

Those who died were a nine-week-old baby, its father, and three women aged 25, 52 and 73. Eighteen people were seriously injured.

Experts testified that the man suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and delusions that involved a bizarre government plot against him.

Investigators said he had been living for days in the loaned Land Rover SUV used in the attack.

The defendant, a trained electrician, refused to testify during the trial.