LASK new signing

Allegations of violence: new trial against Jerome Boateng

A new trial against Jerome Boateng begins in Munich.

(Bild: AFP/APA/Christof STACHE)

Shortly before the start of training for Bundesliga soccer team LASK, new signing Jerome Boateng will stand trial on Friday. A new trial against the former German team player begins in Munich.

In September 2023, the Bavarian Supreme Court overturned Boateng's conviction for insulting and assaulting his former partner due to procedural errors, among other things, and referred the case back to the Munich I Regional Court. The proceedings will now be reopened there.

"He is naturally tense," said his lawyer Leonard Walischewski. In the previous trial before the regional court, not enough weight was given to exonerating evidence against his client. "The trial was shockingly unfair," Walischewski had already said in September last year. "The defendant Boateng was already finally convicted before the appeal proceedings had even begun."

A crucial mistake
In October 2022, the Munich I Regional Court had sentenced Boateng in the second instance to a fine of 120 daily rates of 10,000 euros each - a total of 1.2 million euros - for assaulting his ex-girlfriend during a vacation in the Caribbean.

However, the presiding judge made a crucial mistake, as the Bavarian Supreme Court found last year: Because after the defense had filed a motion of bias against him, he himself was involved in the decision to reject it. A violation of the law that now makes the new trial necessary. However, the court not only allowed the appeal by the former national team player, but also that of the public prosecutor's office and the joint plaintiff.

Six trial days scheduled
The proceedings against the long-time Bayern Munich defender, who recently moved from Italian club US Salernitana to LASK, have been dragging on for a long time. The Munich district court had already imposed a fine on Boateng in 2021: 60 daily fines of 30,000 euros each, i.e. a total of 1.8 million euros.

For the new trial, the district court has now scheduled six days of hearings to find answers to the central questions of the years-long proceedings: Did the former soccer star attack and insult his then partner? Or did the woman - as Boateng claims - make it all up in a dispute over the children?

According to the court's schedule, the new verdict could be handed down on July 19. The presumption of innocence applies to Boateng until the legal conclusion of the proceedings. LASK has not yet commented on the case, citing the ongoing proceedings.