On the day the verdict was announced in the Ludwigslust district court, judge Siegmar Hackbarth asked the crucial question again: “How could the defendant assume that this was a wild boar?” This was the focus of the sensational trial against a hunter from Lower Saxony who accidentally shot his hunting friend on a tree stand during a hunt in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania at the beginning of 2025.
The court decided: two years in prison for negligent homicide, suspended for three years probation. The 52-year-old from Cloppenburg must pay 9,000 euros to the widow, who appeared as a co-plaintiff in the trial.
What had happened?
On January 2, 2025, the later shooter and his 48-year-old friend drove from Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony to Mecklenburg early in the morning to hunt. The trial reconstructed what happened next: After the men had hunted all day, they went out again in the evening to the edge of a forest near the town of Mustin in the Ludwigslust-Parchim district. In the darkness, both men took up neighboring perches 142 meters apart.
The hunting friend climbed to the first perch, the later shooter stumbled wearily on to the next perch. On the way he fell down and his things were wet. Once on the high seat, he did not open the front window, which offered him the open landscape as a field of fire, but rather the side windows. Then another fellow hunter wrote via WhatsApp that he saw a wild boar.
The later shooter looked at his thermal imaging device. It was mounted on the hunting rifle with a telescopic sight set to a very high magnification. This made the image very coarse - the device only showed a bright point. The hunter thought: That's the wild boar, aimed through the side window towards the other perch and pulled the trigger.
Victim bled to death
The hunting friend was hit in the neck and bled to death within minutes. “He was my best friend,” the defendant, visibly affected, explained during the trial. His lawyer read out the statement. He was filled with sadness and horror, it said. He is shocked and deeply regrets what happened. He wished he could turn back time and prevent the accident. “I’m so sorry.”
At the end of the trial, Judge Hackbarth said of the shooter: “He did pretty much everything wrong that evening that you can actually do wrong.”
Hunting rules ignored
The rifle scope was set incorrectly. Then the now 52-year-old did not check whether the spot that his thermal imaging device showed him was really a piece of game. Beforehand, he had not made sure where exactly the perch with his friend was - for example by means of light signals. The judge's conclusion: If the hunter had followed the hunting rules, the tragic accident would not have occurred. The defendant assumed a high degree of personal guilt.
The widow and her lawyer sat on the other side of the hearing room during the trial. The widow has a daughter who was 13 years old at the time of the fatal hunting accident. The father was the family's provider, the judge said.
Co-plaintiff demands imprisonment
At the end of the trial, the co-plaintiff demanded a prison sentence without parole, which was at the upper end of what a jury is allowed to impose. That's four years, as the widow's lawyer explained.
She is not satisfied with the verdict. However, an appeal is not possible for the co-plaintiff because the facts of negligent homicide are not in doubt, she told the German Press Agency after the hearing.
Judge Hackbarth said the proceedings had also touched the court emotionally. “What tragedy, what sadness, what pain.” He further said that the court found it difficult to find a punishment that was appropriate to the crime and guilt because many circumstances and features of the crime could be assessed differently.
The shooter's defense attorney told the German Press Agency that he would recommend his client to accept the verdict.
