A Luxembourg bus driver admitted following his arrest that he had sent threatening letters to Bettel and Lenert on two occasions in 2020.
In the letters, the accused had personally threatened the families of both ministers. In the letter to Lenert, he went so far as to describe how he wanted to torture and kill her daughters. He also stood accused of threats to carry out bombings and attacks on vaccination and testing centres.
The contents of the envelopes sent to both ministers, as well as letters sent to RTL and the National Health Fund, contained a brown powder, which turned out to be ground pepper.
The accused said he had acted in a moment of weakness and admitted to sending the letters without pressure.
In addition to the two-year suspended jail sentence, the court also sentenced the man to pay a fine of €2,500, as requested by the prosecution.
Peter Freitag, one of the organisers of the Saturday anti-Covid demonstrations, also appeared in court this week, where he was accused of inciting public disorder. The court was shown a video which first appeared on Facebook, in which Freitag was said to have called for the public to topple the government. He was also accused of insulting the Prime Minister and the police.
The prosecution requested a six-month prison sentence; however, the court acquitted Freitag of all charges.
In another court case related to the coronavirus pandemic, former journalist and online personality Bas Schagen filed a lawsuit against publishing house Editpress, accusing them of defamation. The offending article, printed in the Tageblatt newspaper in December 2021, suggested Schagen played a role in the anti-Covid movement relating to the protests which took place in the Grand Duchy on a weekly basis last year.
Shortly after the publication of the article, Schagen took down his YouTube channel and discontinued his online activities. He filed the lawsuit as a result, in a private prosecution of the newspaper. However, the court acquitted the defendants.
The verdict can be appealed over the next 40 days.
