Swiss wild camper cruelly killed: accused killed 60 meters in his home country – hiker falls on Mount Pilatus and dies

The case caused a stir in early June: a 31-year-old Swiss man was found dead with severe head and facial injuries on the banks of the Rhine in Jeststetten, Germany, not far from the border with Switzerland. The man, who wanted to camp wild in the idyllic setting, was killed with a huge piece of wood that police found at the crime scene. According to the investigators’ findings, the perpetrator struck at least eight times. The victim subsequently died of traumatic brain injuries.

It was initially unclear who was behind the horrific attack. But a DNA sample from a 39-year-old man from Latvia put him at the center of the investigation: the same DNA was also found on the murder weapon and on a cigarette butt left at the crime scene. The suspected perpetrator was previously questioned as a witness. Two weeks after the crime, the 39-year-old was arrested in a Lidl parking lot in Lottstetten, Germany.

The 39-year-old had only recently entered Germany and, unlike his country of origin, Latvia, was not known to the police there: the man served a ten-year prison sentence for murder there from 2005 before being released in 2015. According to the “NZZ”, the man is not a normal Latvian citizen, but rather a so-called “non-citizen”. This status is a Latvian peculiarity: although the approximately 200,000 Latvian non-citizens in the Baltic country have the Latvian passport, they are considered second-class citizens and are not allowed to participate in elections, for example.

The suspect’s motive remains unclear. Investigators currently believe that the murdered Swiss was a random victim and that he met the alleged perpetrator for the first time on the fateful evening. So far he has shown little cooperation and is exercising his right to refuse to testify.

Now that the German public prosecutor has filed charges against the man, these will now be translated and sent to the suspect’s lawyer. The Waldshut-Tiengen Regional Court will then decide whether to allow the lawsuit. If this is the case, the man’s trial would likely begin in December this year. (con/sda)