Final dismissal of criminal appeal after reversal of lower court’s procedural rejection for lack of merits-based legal error.

The BGH 5th Criminal Senate dismissed the defendant's appeal as unfounded, upholding the Landgericht Berlin's original criminal judgment of March 28, 2023, and ordered the defendant to bear the costs of the appeal proceedings. The dispute centered on the procedural validity of the appeal, as the Landgericht had previously rejected it as inadmissible on May 24, 2023; the Higher Regional Court overturned this procedural rejection to allow the appeal to proceed, but subsequently affirmed the substantive outcome after finding no legal error to the defendant's detriment. The decisive legal basis involved the procedural requirements for admissible criminal appeals under German criminal procedure law and the standard of review for identifying errors of law prejudicial to the accused.