23-year-old German police officer went on trial in Bonn on Thursday charged with negligence in the killing of a colleague on a police shooting range.
The accused is alleged to have aimed and fired his pistol at the victim, also 23, believing that it was a practice weapon and not a loaded gun.
The victim was hit in the throat and died two weeks after the incident on Nov. 26 last year.
The officers initially trained with practice weapons on the federal police range at Sankt Augustin near Bonn.
They were then told to collect their genuine pistols.
The prosecution alleges that the accused fired at his colleague as a joke but had mixed up the weapons.
The defence takes a different view. Though they do not deny the shooting happened, the “events took place differently”, the accused’s lawyer said.
The lawyer said that his client had removed and was checking his service pistol because he believed it not to have been fully engaged in its holster. Startled by a noise, he touched the trigger and fired the fatal shot accidentally.
dpa/NAN
