Life sentence for poacher who killed German police officers

BERLIN (AP) — A court in western Germany convicted a 39-year-old man of murder Wednesday in the shooting deaths of two police officers who had stopped him and an accomplice on suspicion of poaching. Fatal attacks on police are rare in Germany and the killings of the two young officers prompted widespread outrage and condemnation. A regional court in Kaiserslautern sentenced the defendant to life imprisonment. Judges dismissed the defendant’s claim that he had acted in self-defense and ruled that due to the severity of the crime he will not be automatically eligible for parole after 15 years. The 33-year-old accomplice was found guilty of commercial poaching but the court refrained from sentencing him because his testimony had helped solve the case.