A German court on Wednesday sentenced a father to 13 years in prison for attempted murder by injecting mercury into his one-year-old daughter's foot. The man's girlfriend was sentenced to 12 years in prison for participating in the crime.
The German news agency dpa reported that the man, 30, from the small town of Springe, near the city of Hanover, wanted revenge on the baby's mother, who had abandoned him shortly after birth.
According to the prosecution, the father and his new partner knew that the poison would not directly cause death and wanted to inflict especially intense pain on the girl. After the injection, she suffered a serious foot infection and a rash all over her body. The mercury in her body was only found by chance during a third surgery related to the poisoning, dpa reported.
Both the father and his 34-year-old girlfriend initially denied the charges in a Hannover court, but shortly before the trial ended, the couple admitted that together they injected mercury into the girl's left foot and right ankle last July.
It is not clear where they got the liquid mercury from. The defendants can appeal the ruling. The names of the accused and the victim were not revealed, in accordance with the German privacy policy.
