One month after two police officers were shot dead in a traffic stop near the town of Kusel, in western Germany, prosecutors have dropped the murder charges against one of the two suspects detained after the slaying.

Prosecutors in the nearby city of Kaiserslautern on Tuesday said that investigators now believe that only one of the suspects killed both officers.

There is evidence, they said, that only the 38-year-old suspect fired all five shots. All the fingerprints and DNA on both weapons used in the crime belonged to only one person.

However, the 32-year-old suspect will still be charged with illegal poaching, the crime that likely led to the officers' killing. Prosecutors believe the suspects were trying to cover up their activities.

The men were stopped on January 31 by a 24-year-old female officer in training and her 29-year-old male colleague. Before they were killed, they radioed about checking a suspicious vehicle.

The perpetrators fled the scene, leaving the carcasses of wild animals they had shot in the back of their car.

Police in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate launched a manhunt for the pair. The 38-year-old turned himself in to authorities after a consultation with his lawyer and after his name and picture had been widely shared by police, a step used comparatively rarely by German law enforcement. The 32-year-old was arrested soon after at the same residence, roughly 37 kilometers (23 miles) from the crime scene, where the elder suspect had agreed to meet police.

The 38-year-old suspect had possessed a firearms license since 1999, investigators said, although his last one had lapsed in 2020.

The other suspect has never had any such license. 

Violent shootings, especially of police officers, are extremely rare in Germany. The case drew considerable domestic and even international attention, as did emotional memorials for the slain officers.

es/msh (AFP, dpa)