An Afghan man, 25, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for driving into a peaceful trade union demonstration in Munch in February 2025, killing a mother and her 2-year-old child.
The Munich Higher Regional Court, which announced the ruling, issued a finding of particularly severe guilt, meaning he will unlikely be able to be released from prison on probation after 15 years, which is common in Germany.
"The act, one must say it clearly, was intended to destroy human lives," one of the two representatives of the prosecutor general's office said in his closing argument.
The mother and her child were severely injured in the car ramming and died shortly afterwards.
Numerous other people were injured, some of them critically. Many still suffer severely, physically or psychologically, from the consequences of the attack, with some unable to work.
The panel convicted the defendant, among other things, of two counts of murder and attempted murder in 23 cases. The court ruling matched prosecutors' requests, while the defence argued for a 15-year prison sentence and placement in psychiatric care.
Defence lawyers said their client showed clear signs of a subtype of schizophrenia known as hebephrenic or disorganized schizophrenia, in which instead of delusions, a confused emotional life and unpredictable behaviour are in the foreground.
But the presiding judge said the man wanted to attack and randomly kill people in Germany in response to the situation in Islamic countries.
"In doing so, the defendant wanted to carry out an act pleasing to God and prove himself to Allah, to himself and to his family as a good Muslim."