Jerome Boateng given suspended fine, warning in assault case

A court in Bavaria has issued a warning to former international footballer Jerome Boateng for intentional bodily harm and issued him a €200,000 suspended fine.

A regional court in the Bavarian capital, Munich, on Friday issued the German World Cup-winning soccer star Jerome Boateng with a warning over alleged intentional bodily harm against his ex-girlfriend.

Ex-Bayern Munich player Boateng received a suspended fine of €200,000 ($227,000), which he would only have to pay if he committed another offense. 

What we know about the case
The proceedings center on allegations of violence made by Boateng's former partner, the mother of his 13-year-old twins, during a vacation together in the Caribbean in 2018.

It was the third retrial of the case. The presiding judge spoke of a toxic relationship between Boateng and his former partner.

Prosecutors had demanded a fine of €1.12 million, while the defense maintained the incident in question amounted only to a scuffle and argued for a more moderate sentence. 

Boateng denied hitting his former partner and throwing a lantern and cooling bag at her during the vacation. Early in the trial, he spoke of a "nightmare," while his lawyer maintained there had been a "fabricated narrative of a wife-beater."

In a summing up on Friday, presiding judge Susanne Hemmerich said this narrative did not stand.

A 'miserable relationship'
Before the closing arguments, a mutual acquaintance of Boateng and his ex-girlfriend had given evidence, describing their relationship as emotionally charged and very difficult. The pair had "a miserable relationship," the man said. 

The court had heard that Boateng had pushed his ex-girlfriend away to defend himself and that she had injured him on the lip. 

Boateng was found guilty of domestic violence in the case in September 2021 and ordered to pay a €1.8 million euro fine — the highest possible financial damages that could be imposed by the district court in which he was tried. Boateng's team appealed the verdict.

In November 2022, he was ordered to pay €1.2 million to his former partner after the assault sentence was upheld. That decision was overturned at a regional court because of legal errors, meaning the process had to be restarted.

The long-time Bayern defender recently transferred from the Italian club US Salernitana to the Austrian side Linzer ASK.

Source: DW