A German court on Friday handed down prison sentences to two alleged members of the denialist Querdenken (Lateral Thinking) movement, who allegedly caused a train to brake quickly as part of a protest against restriction measures during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Wurzburgho district court has found the two defendants, a 38-year-old man and his 61-year-old accomplice, guilty of dangerous and negligent interference with rail traffic and coercion, according to a court spokesman. The verdict is not yet final. An appeal or review could be filed within a week.
The Querdenken movement is largely made up of coronavirus deniers, far-right and anti-vaccine activists, and has organized mass protests in the country.
The 38-year-old man was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison. The woman was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended, with a probation period of three years. In addition, the 61-year-old woman has to pay a fine of 10 installments of 150 euros each. The defendants did not make any statements in this regard during the main hearing.
According to the indictment, the duo had helped to place five posters attached to wooden slats on the tracks of a railway line near Frankfurt in January 2021. The signs read, among other things, in red: «Attention track breakage 2km».
An ICE high-speed train with 62 passengers passed over one of them, measuring about 1.5 by 4.5 meters. The train driver initiated an emergency stop. There were no injuries.
