A court has already dealt with the allegations of violence made by Jérôme Boateng’s ex-girlfriend against the football world champion three times. Now the trial is moving into the next round.
A new trial against former national soccer player Jérôme Boateng begins on June 14 before the Munich I Regional Court. In September last year, the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court overturned the conviction of the now 35-year-old for insulting and bodily harm against his former partner due to procedural errors.
At the time, however, not only the appeal of the former national player was upheld, but also that of the public prosecutor and the co-plaintiff, and the case was referred back to the Munich I Regional Court. The case must now be completely reopened there – including the taking of evidence and the disclosure of the most personal details. The key questions of the years-long proceedings: Did the former football star attack and insult his then partner? Or did the woman make it all up in a dispute over the children?
Six days of trial have been scheduled in the new trial to find answers – significantly more than in the previous main hearings. According to the court’s schedule, the new verdict could be handed down on July 19. Until the proceedings are legally concluded, Boateng is presumed innocent.
In October 2022, the Munich I Regional Court 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 assault and insult for attacks on his ex-girlfriend during a Caribbean vacation.
But the presiding judge made a crucial mistake, as the Bavarian Supreme Court found last year: After the defense filed a motion to disqualify him, he himself was involved in the decision to reject it. A violation of the law that now makes a new trial necessary.
Boateng’s lawyer in the appeal process, Leonard Walischewski, had called for the verdict to be overturned primarily for this reason. “The proceedings were shockingly unfair,” he said in September. “The defendant Boateng had already been definitively convicted before the appeal process had even begun.”
He welcomed the annulment of the verdict – however, in the worst case scenario for Boateng, the sentence in the new trial could be higher. The appeal court also upheld the appeal by the public prosecutor and Boateng’s ex-girlfriend, who is acting as a co-plaintiff in the proceedings.
The proceedings against the long-time defender of FC Bayern Munich have been dragging on for a long time. The Munich District Court had already imposed a fine on Boateng in 2021: 60 daily rates of 30,000 euros each, a total of 1.8 million euros. If more than 90 daily rates are imposed, convicted persons are considered to have a criminal record.