Jerome Boateng: Trial interrupted shortly after start

Former national soccer player Jérôme Boateng has firmly denied the accusations against him in the trial for assault. “It is not me who has lost control of myself and reacted with violence to arguments in our relationship. At most, I get loud and defend myself when I am attacked,” the 35-year-old said on Friday in a long statement that he read out in front of the Munich I Regional Court.

Judge criticizes “extensive media prejudgment of the defendant”

His ex-girlfriend, the mother of their twins, and the public prosecutor accuse Boateng of bodily harm. He allegedly threw a lantern and a cooler bag at her and later hit her. Boateng denied this. She allegedly attacked him on a Caribbean vacation in 2018. He only defended himself, pushed her away and injured her in the process.

He said he was sorry and had already apologized for it. “However, what she made of it was completely unfounded and destroyed almost everything around me, around us,” said Boateng, speaking of a “nightmare that has been going on for years.”

“I would have liked to have played football at the highest level for a few more years,” said Boateng. But that was not possible because of the allegations against him. “I also lost all my advertising contracts.” Business partners did not want to have anything to do with the “wife beater” he was portrayed as. He actually did not want to comment on private matters. But: “I do not want to just continue to watch as my reputation and my future are destroyed more and more.”

Previously, the presiding judge Susanne Hemmerich’s attempt to persuade the defense and the prosecution to make a so-called deal had failed. “I have been doing this job for 40 years now,” she said. And she had never experienced “such extensive media pre-judgment of the defendant.” The trial against the former national soccer player was therefore interrupted shortly after it began on Friday.

Jerome Boateng case has been keeping courts busy for years

The proceedings have been going on for six years – this is partly due to Corona, but also partly due to the failures of the judiciary. And for six years, the two now 13-year-old daughters of Boateng and his ex-girlfriend, who accuses him of violence, have had to “read in the newspaper at regular intervals how their parents are fighting each other in court”. She wanted to suggest that the matter finally come to an end “especially for the children” and emphasized: “I think I have a proposal that all parties can live with.” But this was not accepted.

This is the fourth time that a court has dealt with the incident that occurred during a Caribbean vacation in 2018. The proceedings against the long-time defender of FC Bayern Munich, who just moved from the Italian club US Salernitana to Linzer ASK in Austria, have been dragging on for a long time. Charges were brought in 2019, and in 2021 the Munich District Court imposed a fine of 60 daily rates of 30,000 euros each, a total of 1.8 million euros.

In October 2022, the Munich I Regional Court sentenced Boateng in the second instance for bodily harm and insult to a fine of 120 daily rates of 10,000 euros each – a total of 1.2 million euros. But the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court overturned the verdict. Until the proceedings have been concluded with legal effect, Boateng is presumed innocent.