STARNBERG (ALEMANIA), 22 Dic. (dpa/EP) –
Former German international Jens Lehmann was sentenced this Friday to pay a fine of 420,000 euros for his participation in a strange neighborhood dispute in which he wielded a chainsaw.
The district court of Starnberg, a city near Munich, found him guilty of property damage, slander and attempted fraud, for which he was ordered to pay the aforementioned amount, at a rate of 210 daily installments of 2,000 euros each. .
Judge Tanja Walter declared that, although the former goalkeeper had “constantly presented himself as a victim” throughout the process, “he is not a victim, but an aggressor” and accused him of presenting “unheard of stories” in his defending.
The subject of the trial was a strange neighborhood dispute, initiated by the construction of a garage in a neighbor's house, which apparently blocked the view of a lake from the home of the goalkeeper, who reached third place with Germany in the World Cup. 2006.
The Prosecutor's Office accused Lehmann of breaking into the neighbor's garage with a chainsaw in his hand and sawing a beam from the roof of the recent construction. “With a chainsaw in their hands, heroes become legends,” said prosecutor Stefan Kreutzer.
On the first day of the trial, Lehmann admitted that he had entered the garage with a chainsaw, but otherwise cited gaps in his memory and spoke of false suspicions and defamation. “The only person who has behaved in a way that damages his reputation is the defendant himself,” the judge commented.