The president of the Luxembourg City courts summed up the rather peculiar case in one sentence: "Now this was truly something else!"
A 29-year-old man stood trial on Tuesday afternoon accused of the attempted bribery of two police officers.
In November 2018, the highly intoxicated man is said to have offered €10,000 to one of the police officers and even €20,000 to his colleague in order to persuade the officers not to record his misdeeds. The defendant was not present at the trial.
The prosecutor demanded that the defendant be fined and sentenced to prison for 12 months, stating that this was a clear case of attempted bribery.
The defendant, who has a history of being pulled over for drink driving, is thought to have wanted to avoided a more serious charge following repeated offences.
The two police officers in question had also spoken out on the defendant's previous behaviors. One of them had cause to pull over the defendant for drink driving because he was in a wrong lane in Luxembourg City i the early hours of the morning.
It is alleged that he first offered the two police officers €10,000 to quote; "forget everything that just happened".
After a taxi had been called to take the man home, he turned his attention toward the officers once more and offered them €20,000. He allegedly pointed to his wallet and said, "Take them!".
When asked by the judge if the intention really was to offer money in exchange for the records being destroyed, the first police officer responded that this had indeed been the case.
The second officer, the one that had been offered €10,000, confirmed the testimonial of his colleague. Even though this was not the procedure to pay a fine, the defendant allegedly insisted that he had €4,000 in his wallet. According to the officer's testimony he then said quote "Here, take them, here they are!".
The judge stated that the defendant had admitted to offering cash from his wallet, but had trouble recalling the offer of €10,000 and €20,000 respectively.
He added: "With over (blood alcohol level) 2.5 per thousand, he certainly had more than one drink before! It’s understandable that he would say such nonsense in that state!"
The verdict in this case will be given on Thursday.
