A member of the Hells Angels biker gang was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Koblenz court Monday for killing a police officer.
The district court in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate declared the 44-year-old from Anhausen guilty of manslaughter, coercion, and attempted extortion.
On March 17, 2010 the man fired two shots through the closed door of his home, hitting a 42-year-old police officer, who was killed.
The member of the special police force had been trying to open the door to conduct a search with another colleague as part of a larger investigation of the Westerwald region’s red light milieu.
The coercion and attempted extortion charges against the defendant came in connection with this investigation.
During the trial the defendant admitted to shooting through the door, but maintained he did not know a police officer was on the other side. Instead he believed he was being threatened by member of rival biker gang the Bandidos, he said.
This claim prompted state prosecutors to downgrade their original charge of murder to manslaughter, bringing the maximum sentence down to nine years from 12.
The defence plead for the biker to be pardoned because he acted in self-defence and was the result of a “chain of unhappy circumstances.”
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20110228-33399.html