A German court today gave a woman a year's suspended jail sentence for posing as the cousin of a victim in last year's Germanwings plane crash and obtaining compensation offered by the airline.
Pretending to be a relative of a teacher who was killed in the March 24 disaster in the French Alps, the woman travelled to France on two occasions -- including once with her two children and a friend -- at the expense of Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings.
The trips, which included several nights' stay at a luxury hotel in Marseille, were worth more than USD 16,000.
But investigators later found she had no links to the teacher at a high school in the western town of Haltern am See, which lost some 16 students and two teachers in the crash.
The court in Cologne had issued its ruling today after hearing from the prosecutors, but it can still be overturned because the accused did not appear on medical grounds.
If she rejects the verdict, she can request a new hearing, the court said.
The disaster claimed the lives of 150 people, including that of the suicidal co-pilot Andreas Lubitz who deliberately slammed the plane into the French mountainside.
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