Frankfurt/Main (dpa/lhe) - After a punch with serious consequences, a 50-year-old man was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison by the Frankfurt district court. The judges assumed serious bodily harm on Wednesday after the 59-year-old victim has been in permanent care since the crime.
The incident happened in August last year in a busy square in downtown Frankfurt in the immediate vicinity of a weekly market. The two heavily intoxicated men got into an argument for an unknown reason, which ended with the defendant punching his fist. The victim fell down a few steps, hit the back of his head on the paving slabs and initially lay motionless. The man regained consciousness in the hospital, but due to severe brain damage his ability to remember and speak has been permanently destroyed.
In the verdict, these consequences were rated as aggravated punishment. After the man had repeatedly been violent, the question of a suspended sentence is out of the question, it said. The accused had claimed in court that he could not remember anything. The verdict is not yet legally binding. The defense had asked for a suspended sentence.
