Hygiene deficiencies: Death after visiting a tattoo studio

A 22-year-old man gets a tattoo in an unregistered makeshift tattoo studio and dies a few days later. The trial against the 39-year-old tattoo artist for negligent homicide failed at the first attempt. The Korbach district court initially suspended the proceedings on Monday.

The background is that an invited witness living abroad did not appear and his questioning cannot take place in the foreseeable future. The defendant’s defense stated that it could not waive the questioning of the witness. She also did not agree to the reading of the witness’s police interrogation protocol. According to the presiding judge, the trial against the 39-year-old will not restart until mid-2025 at the earliest.

The Kassel public prosecutor’s office accuses the defendant of tattooing the deceased’s forearm in his apartment in March 2022. There are said to have been serious hygiene deficiencies. Among other things, the defendant is said to have not worn a mouth and nose mask, not used disinfectant and used expired paint. The tattooed man is said to have developed a bacterial infection just days later, resulting in septic multi-organ failure, which led to the 22-year-old’s death. According to the prosecution, the poor hygienic conditions during the tattooing were responsible for this.