| UPDATE!!! PUNISHMENT OF OWNER (AND GIRLFRIEND) OF DOG THAT KILLED VOLKAN |
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CO-DEFENDANT TO BE SENT TO JAIL FOR 33 MONTHS
Public Prosecutor, Harald Allerbeck, has called for long prison sentences for the two accused in the Hamburg Fighting Dog Case. Ibrahim K (24) is to go to prison for eight and a half years as the main defendant against an accusation of death after GBH. The co-defendant Silja W (19) is to be sentenced to two years and nine months in accordance with the youth penalty laws. The pair's dogs killed the six-year-old, Volkan, on the 26th of June on Wildhelmsburg school premises.
Allerbeck took it as positive that Silja W had told the parents of the boy she was sorry and admitted to be partly to blame. Ibrahim K has to his advantage that he tried to save the life of the boy.
The accused had accepted though that their dogs might attack people. They knew they didn't have the dogs under control. Allerbeck made reference to incidents in the past when the fighting dogs had shown their aggression towards other dogs and people.
"It didn't matter to the accused what their dogs got up to. They had the cheek to claim there was no money for muzzles. There was enough, though, for drugs. Both of them were in possession of 60 grams of marihuana. Protection of the general public wasn't worth that small amount of money to them," according to the Prosecutor, who also accused Ibrahim K of never having shown remorse.
Why he didn't say he was sorry is explained by K in a letter to Silja W. "Asking the parents for forgiveness would have been wrong. If it had been my child it would have felt like a curse," writes K, whose solicitor Michael Wulff is asking for aquittal.
"The Prosecutor's demand is over the top," he said. Conviction for death through GBH is out of the question as the accident would have had to be planned for that to apply. It wasn't that. Both dogs had lots of contact with people. Witness statemens, saying that the dogs had been trained to attack were called "unbelievable" by the defense. There were too many statements made which could be refuted. It couldn't be proven that the attack happened on purpose. Only today Silja W's solicitor will start his speech. Gabriele Bergner, of the youth justice support service, reckons that his client is still "traumatized." "She has a lot of guilt feelings and was in danger of suicide. Silja still carries a picture of Volkan around with her because she can't forget how the boy sat up and looked at her one last time," according to Bergner. At times Silja W had toyed with the idea of going out of the door in Wilhelmsburg to "face the hatred and take her punishment."
Sentences are expected on Wednesday, 17th January.
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