Man jailed for kicking Berlin woman down station stairs

BERLIN: A man who kicked a woman down the stairs at a Berlin subway station last year has jailed for two years and eleven months for grievous bodily harm.

The CCTV video emerged last October of an unprovoked attack on a woman at Hermannstrasse subway station shocked Germans and went viral. The woman suffered a broken arm and a head wound.

Her attacker, a 28-year-old Bulgarian, named at the trial as Svetoslav S, is seen in the video with a group of three other men. He said he did not remember the incident but admitted it was him in the video.

During the trial, the woman testified that she had fallen head first and landed on her face. She said she had suffered for months after the attack and had initially avoided contact with the outside world.

 

READ MORE: Shocking footage: Woman falls victim to ‘senseless violence’ in Berlin

Svetoslav, holding a bottle and smoking a cigarette, sneaks down four steps behind his victim before launching a big kick, sending the woman flying down to the bottom of the staircase. He moves off and takes a big drag on his cigarette.

The incident took place in October but the video emerged in December. Eleven days later, the attacker was arrested after being identified by the public as he arrived in Berlin on a bus from France.

Svetoslav S, whose surname has not been made public under German privacy laws, is described as a convicted criminal in Bulgaria who was suffering from brain damage caused by a car accident.

The sentence would have been longer, but a psychiatric expert argued that the attacker had diminished responsibility because of the brain injury as well as alcohol and drug abuse.

Days after his arrest, Germans were shocked by another unprovoked attack on the city’s underground in the same south-eastern area of Neukölln.

A homeless Polish man sleeping on a bench at Schoenleinstrasse was set alight by a group of migrants. He escaped unharmed when a passersby put out the flames.

One of the attackers was jailed for almost three years and three teenagers were given suspended sentences.

This article originally appeared on BBC News.