German student’s killer gets 70 years

Montana man shot exchange student in his garage.

MISSOULA, MONT. — A Montana homeowner was sentenced Thursday to 70 years in prison, with no parole for at least 20 years, in the shotgun killing of a German exchange student who was trespassing in his garage.

District Judge Ed McLean said Markus Kaarma was hunting, not safeguarding his home when he shot 17-year-old Diren Dede early one April morning.

“Here you have a 12gauge shotgun, not to protect your family, but to go after someone,” the judge told Kaarma. “And go after someone you did.”

A Missoula jury convicted Kaarma, 30, of deliberate homicide in the case that caused an outcry in Germany and brought scrutiny to Montana’s law allowing the use of deadly force in some situations to protect home and family. Kaarma faced between 10 to 100 years in prison.

He shot Dede, who was unarmed, after being alerted by motion sensors in his garage. Witnesses said Kaarma fired at the teen four times, striking him twice.

Dede’s father, Celal Dede, said of the sentence: “It is justice. I am not happy. My son is dead.”

He and his wife attended the entire trial, and he flew back from Germany for Thursday’s hearing.

Kaarma sat staring down during much of the proceeding, occasionally glancing around the crowded courtroom.

“I’m sorry my actions caused the death of Mr. Dede,” Kaarma told the judge.

Before handing down the sentence, McLean heard testimony from Kaarma’s girlfriend, a detective, the teen’s host parents in Missoula and others.

Kaarma’s mother, Chong Kaarma, pleaded for leniency for the sake of her grandson.

She also apologized to Celal Dede from the stand. He replied from his front-row seat: “Why did you wait? Too late.”

Kaarma’s girlfriend, Janelle Pflager, testified she has received death threats against their 19month-old son. She called Kaarma the “single most misunderstood person I have ever met.”

“He didn’t want to kill anyone,” she said. “He only wanted to make sure he and myself and son were alive at the end.”

Missoula County Attorney Karla Painter later asked Pflager if she said during a phone call with Kaarma in jail that she and Kaarma wouldn’t pay for the Dedes’ “dirty rat son” to be sent back to Germany for burial.

Pflager said she didn’t recall saying that.

Prosecutors argued Kaarma was intent on luring an intruder into his garage after it was burglarized at least once in the weeks before the shooting. Three witnesses testified they heard Kaarma say he’d been waiting up nights to shoot an intruder.

On the night of the shooting, authorities said, Kaarma left his garage door partially open.

KURT WILSON / THE MISSOULIAN Markus Kaarma was intent on luring an intruder into his garage after it was burglarized in the weeks before the shooting, prosecutors say.