A 16-year-old Ukrainian girl living in Germany died after being fatally shoved in front of a freight train at a railway station — with the migrant not being charged this week because he was insane.The victim, identified as Liana K., was killed on August 11 at Friedland station in Lower Saxony while walking home and speaking with her grandfather on the phone. Prosecutors say a 31-year-old Iraqi national pushed her into the path of a freight train travelling about 100 km/h, causing her immediate death. DNA matching the suspect was later found on the girl’s shoulder, indicating a forceful contact consistent with a push.Police were first called to the station earlier in the day on a report of a man acting erratically. When officers arrived, the suspect pointed to the girl’s body on the tracks and claimed to have found her. At that time, authorities treated the incident as an accident and did not detain him. It was only after forensic evidence linked him to the victim that he was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter..The suspect, who had lived in Germany for several years, had previously been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and tested positive for alcohol after the incident. His asylum application had been rejected in 2022 and a deportation order issued under the Dublin Regulation to return him to Lithuania, but authorities did not carry it out. Liana’s family had fled Mariupol in 2022 after their home was destroyed by the Russian invasion, settling in the German state of Thuringia. Her death shocked the local community, prompting fundraising efforts for her funeral and criticism of the handling of the suspect’s immigration status.German authorities in Göttingen have ruled that the suspect is not criminally responsible for the killing because of his diagnosed schizophrenia, meaning no conventional murder or manslaughter conviction is being pursued. Instead, prosecutors have sought to place the man in preventive detention in a secure psychiatric hospital, rather than prison, under German law because he was judged legally insane at the time of the incident.
