Neighborhood dispute escalates completely Fake call for help on balloon costs man dearly

A man wanted to blacken his neighbor's name with a fake call for help. This is now costing him dearly.

In a neighbourhood dispute in Saxony-Anhalt, a man has been acquitted of suspicion of falsely accusing his neighbor of depriving him of his liberty. According to a spokesperson, the Dessau-Rosslau district court did not consider the crime to be proven on Friday. The case got rolling after a balloon landed in the neighboring Czech Republic in August 2020.

A card was attached to it. It said that the man was being held captive by his armed neighbor. A special task force then searched the neighbor's property in Dessau, but found nothing. Investigations against the neighbor on suspicion of deprivation of liberty were dropped because his innocence was proven.

Instead, the now acquitted man ended up in court on the charge of false accusation. The public prosecutor's office saw an ongoing dispute between the neighbors as the motive for the crime. The Dessau-Rosslau district court initially imposed a fine of 120 daily rates of 50 euros each, i.e. a total of 6,000 euros, on the defendant. He defended himself against this in the district court.

As the spokesman said, the original conviction was largely based on an expert opinion on the writing on the card. The expert from the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) had stated that there was a high probability of 95 percent that the note had been written by the defendant. The man himself had commissioned an expert opinion, which had come to the opposite conclusion.

The regional court based its decision on the LKA report, but did not consider a probability of 95 percent to be sufficient. This would require further incriminating evidence, said the spokesperson. The decision is not yet legally binding, the public prosecutor's office can still appeal.