A German court has sentenced a 38-year-old man to life imprisonment for murdering two men in knife attacks carried out within hours of each other in Kassel, central Germany.
The Kassel regional court delivered its verdict on August 3, convicting him of two counts of murder and of theft. Judges also established the particular gravity of his guilt, a finding that in practice rules out release after the 15 years normally served under a German life term.
The court additionally ordered preventive detention to follow the prison sentence, citing a significant risk that the man would commit further serious acts of violence.
Both killings took place on March 20, 2025. The first victim, a 44-year-old described in court as the defendant’s best friend, died in the street in the Rothenditmold district after suffering 20 stab wounds. A cyclist found the body.
A 51-year-old acquaintance was discovered dead hours later in a flat in the Kirchditmold district, killed with 30 stab wounds.
According to the presiding judge, the defendant had accused both men of trying to poison him with crack cocaine contaminated with fentanyl, having repeatedly suffered symptoms of poisoning after taking drugs. He confronted each of them in turn during the same night.
The court found the murder criterion of treachery had been met because neither victim had been able to defend himself. It also concluded the man had carried a knife on both occasions because he was already resolved to kill if necessary.
After the first killing, the defendant and his then partner went to the dead man’s home and spent time with his girlfriend, who did not yet know what had happened. He stole her purse containing about €1,000.
The 30-year-old woman charged alongside him was acquitted. She told the court she had gone with him out of fear that she would otherwise be killed or seriously injured, and judges accepted that the relationship had been marked by violence and abuse.
The man, who holds German and Kazakh citizenship, was assessed as dependent on several drugs and as having a pronounced dissocial personality disorder, though he was found fully criminally responsible. He had already served multi-year sentences for violent offences, including a petrol station robbery.
The couple were arrested in Melsungen, in the Schwalm-Eder district, a day after the killings following a public appeal. The verdict is not final, with defence lawyers announcing an appeal and prosecutors weighing one of their own.
Knife violence remains a live political issue in Germany, where Berlin extended public knife bans in 2025 and where police crime figures show foreign nationals heavily over-represented among violent crime suspects.
