He sits upright in the meeting room of a hospice association, which has provided him with a room for ten years now. Müller is HIV positive, has hepatitis and gets diamorphine as a substitute for hard drugs. He thought for a long time before he agreed to do the interview with General Anzeiger. And then he decided to describe his version of the accident.

For most of the people to whom he has told his story, the question of guilt became clear quickly, says Müller - he was a junkie. But he doesn’t agree with that assessment. When the accident occurred, he had been on his way to a methadone treatment. "And I was completely clear in the head." Three women on their bikes were coming from the direction of the Münster Basilica and pedaling towards him. The woman on the right would become the accident victim.

He was coasting on his bike, and made very short eye contact with the woman. "My last thought was, Where is she going? Then we crashed. " All of the bicyclists had been moving at a similar speed.

Both of them fell. He had a bleeding head wound and went and sat against the church. “There was immediately a crowd gathered around the woman. I did not want to endanger anyone with my infected blood, but I was also in shock." Shortly after, the first ambulance arrived.

Later, in court, Müller realized how dramatic the injuries to the woman had been. According to GA information, she was in a coma for a long time. The former city employee now requires continual intensive nursing care, can no longer work and probably has no chances for recovery.

Müller does not know the identity of the woman but would like to talk with her if he could, to tell her how much he would want to take back the accident if he could. After the trial, where he was order to pay 1400 euros for bodily injury, he tried to apologize to the husband of the victim. He was angrily dismissed. He says, "I do not want to be released from my part of the responsibility. I'm so sorry for the woman. But my life is also destroyed. "

At least what was left of it in 2004. Müller tells of his unhappy youth in Bad Honnef. The marriage of his parents appeared fine but it was not happy and the whole world seemed a lie in which he did not want to participate. Vietnam war, religion, government, parents - the sensitive boy sought answers and found none. At 18 he tried to kill himself with a pesticide. Then came the heroin. He wanted to become a tax consultant, broke off the training, and had been working for many years for garden nurseries and in construction companies - as far as his addiction allowed. When the accident happened, says the 60-year-old, he was just about to improve his life with the help of methadone. Since then, he has been intensively thinking about life, about truth and lies, about "his own wrong reactions".

Jens Müller now receives a disability pension and welfare payments of around 390 euros a month. Just enough to buy vegan food that he cooks in his own room. He voluntarily pays 20 euros a month to the city of Bonn to help pay for costs of the former employee. The accident happened on the way to work so the city pays medical and retirement costs.

Because he suffers from “a chronic illness leading to death” and the fact that he would never be able to raise a huge sum of money, the city administration filed an open-ended claim for 535,000 euros. The 1.36 million euros has been waived for the time being. Orig. text: Andreas BaumannTranslation:ck