The energy manager was attacked in March 2018 and burned with acid.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf Four and a half years after the acid attack on Bernhard Günther, the then Chief Financial Officer of Innogy experienced a little satisfaction. The regional court in Wuppertal has found a defendant guilty for the first time.
The 42-year-old Belgian was sentenced to twelve years in prison for intentionally causing serious and dangerous bodily harm. Up until the last day of the trial, the accused had protested that he was not involved in the crime.
The court thus followed the request of the prosecution. In view of the evidence and, above all, the DNA traces, there could be “no reasonable doubt” that the Belgian was complicit, said prosecutor Dorothea Tumeltshammer. Günther was permanently disfigured, he was suffering from severe pain, and his family was also affected. “The injured party will not get their former life back,” she said. The defense had asked for an acquittal.
For Günther, however, the verdict is only a first step in the legal process. The second perpetrator is still on the run and the people behind the crime are still unknown – although Günther himself has his suspicions. Hopefully the investigation will not end with the decision, the manager said in court. It hopes that the intermediaries and the client of the act would also be cleared up.
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Günther, now CFO at the Finnish energy company Fortum, was attacked about 200 meters from his front door in Haan near Wuppertal in March 2018 and burned with highly concentrated acid. The manager had to be taken to a special clinic with serious injuries, was at times in mortal danger and is still badly affected today.
The accused Belgian was arrested in December. Investigators had previously compared a DNA sample from the suspect to a trace found at the crime scene and found a match.
The act had caused a stir. An acid attack on a high-ranking manager is unprecedented to this day. Günther’s employer at the time, Innogy, had offered a reward of up to 100,000 euros for the perpetrators.
Nonetheless, the investigation was slow. A first suspect was arrested in autumn 2019. However, the public prosecutor’s office could not confirm the suspicion – although Günther is certain that he recognized the man, who is now a 34-year-old martial artist.
Here you can find the two big Handelsblatt interviews with Bernhard Günther:
The suspicion of the Belgian was based primarily on a glove that was found at the crime scene. The suspect always protested his innocence during the proceedings. He claimed the glove was stolen from him and placed at the crime scene – to set a false lead.
Günther, who is now 55, is primarily interested in clarifying the background. For a long time he has suspected a person from his professional environment who wanted to turn him off. He repeated the suspicion in court.
Günther had already been attacked and beaten up while jogging in 2012. “It’s no coincidence if someone is attacked twice on Sunday morning while jogging in Haan,” he said in the process. According to him, both raids took place in times of professional change. There is only one person who would have benefited from being disabled in both 2012 and 2018. He made a list for both attacks. “The intersection is exactly one person,” Günther emphasized in his statement.
His company at the time, Innogy, was actually going through a difficult phase at the time of the acid attack. A few months earlier, the boss at the time, Peter Terium, had resigned and no successor had yet been appointed. Just a week after the fact, the parent company RWE announced plans to sell Innogy to its competitor Eon.
Günther himself has now had several operations, as he testified in court. On the face, part of his skin and eyelids had to be transplanted. Numerous operations are still pending, as the manager testified in court. He stayed with Eon even after the takeover of Innogy to ensure an orderly transition.
More: Innogy manager Bernhard Günther becomes CFO at Fortum
