Overview
- The criminal trial of three former Wilke executives began on Monday in the Landgericht Kassel with prosecutors charging 11 counts of negligent homicide among a total of 57 alleged offenses.
- Prosecutors say Wilke operated under “catastrophic” hygiene conditions from 2015–2019 and that spoiled or reprocessed products were relabeled and sold rather than recalled.
- Investigators tied 37 reported listeriosis cases to Wilke products using genomic analysis that found the Sigma 1 strain in linked patients, and they say Listeria was at least partly causal in 11 deaths.
- More than a dozen trial days are scheduled through mid‑August and the court has invited comprehensive confessions with reduced sentences while expert witnesses will focus on proving medical and legal causation between contaminated lots and individual deaths.
- The case highlights wider questions about food‑safety oversight, corporate responsibility and how regulators and courts establish direct causation in complex outbreaks after the plant’s 2019 closure.