Man jailed for sabotaging German high-speed railway line

German, 52, jailed for removing hundreds of screws from track

Train tracks at a railway junction in Frankfurt, Germany. Getty Images

A German court on Monday convicted a man of attempted murder and gave him an almost 10-year prison sentence for removing hundreds of screws from a high-speed railway track to try to cause a derailment.

The state court in Wiesbaden sentenced the German, 52, to nine years and 10 months behind bars, news agency DPA reported.

Prosecutors said the man removed more than 250 screws from a stretch of the Frankfurt-Cologne high-speed line, one of Germany’s most important routes, in March 2020.

More than 400 trains over several days used the tracks at high speed before two drivers noticed that something was amiss.

A check then found that about 80 metres of track was loose.

An expert told the two-month trial that derailment would have occurred if another five to 30 trains had passed over the spot, causing a disaster in which people would have died.

The court found that the defendant had an “exaggerated craving for recognition". A psychiatrist diagnosed a personality disorder.

In 2018, he sent letters to the German chancellery and elsewhere claiming, among other things, that terrorists had told him they were planning an attack on a high-speed line and only he could prevent it.

He demanded billions of euros, a lifetime of free train travel and “female playmates".

The court found that, after receiving no replies, he wanted to underline his demands by carrying out the sabotage.

He is accused of loosening the screws during the night, when the line was not used for a few hours.

Prosecutors sought a 13-year sentence.

The defence lawyer called for the acquittal of the man, who was homeless at the time and was arrested in Cologne a few days later, saying it had not been proven that his client was responsible.