A high school pupil who assaulted and savagely kicked a passenger in a night-time attack in a mid-city Berlin underground rail station was sentenced Monday to 34 months in jail, according to dpa. The 18-year-old youth, Torben P, whose full name is not being published under media privacy guidelines, said he was drunk at the time. Images of the assault five months ago taken by security cameras shocked Germans upon their release. Judges said the victim, a 30-year-old plumber, could easily have died of suffocation as he lay near death from his injuries on the platform at Friedrichstrasse station, a main city interchange. The victim, who remains emotionally traumatized, rejected an apology from the student. Muggings and random assaults are uncommon in Berlin, which has a population of 3.5 million, and each incident has received close attention from the media. On Saturday, a 23-year-old man fleeing a fight was knocked down and killed by a car as he ran across a boulevard. Police said two out of three youths suspected of attacking him had turned themselves in.
