STUTTGART, Germany, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A German man whose 17-year-old son went on a rampage and killed 15 people went on trial Thursday for breaking national gun safety laws.
The Stuttgart trial of the 51-year-old man, identified at Joerg K., has lef to calls for Germany to tighten its gun laws, Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster reported.
The son, Tim K., took his father's pistol and 258 rounds of ammunition from his parents' bedroom and killed nine students and three teachers at his former school, Albertville College in Winnenden. He hijacked a vehicle and killed three passers-by before taking his own life, Deutsche Welle reported.
Tim K. allegedly had known the password to his father's safe, causing relatives of the slain to be outraged when Stuttgart's juvenile court at first wouldn't allow severe charges of negligence against the father.
The juvenile court's determination, though, is not binding on the Regional Court, where prosecutors submitted the harsher charge of negligently abandoning a firearm, Deutsche Welle said.
The accused faces a maximum sentence of one year in jail for a weapons offense and up to five years if convicted of negligent manslaughter, a defense lawyer said.
