There are several issues being discussed here. One is the murder of the ATCO, one the trail and the verdict and one the circumstances that led to the accident.
In as far as the trail of Vitali Kalojew is concerned, it was a very fast process to the surprise of all, I think. After just 2 days, the court retired to deliberate on the sentence. Vitali Kalojew never denied that he did commit the murder, he did however say that he has no recollection of his action during the event. According to the shrinks this is indeed a very plausible statement. And yes, he did kill the ATCO in front of his family just outside their home.
The sentence of eight years seams light for murder 1 and as some have mentioned, with good conduct he will be paroled after a few years. Under the circumstances I think it really doesn’t matter. 8, 10, 12 or more years or even the death sentence, the live of Vitali Kalojew has been over at the moment of the accident. I believe that the court took these thought into consideration. Some people can handle the loose of a loved one better then others, Vitali Kalojew obviously wasn’t able to cope with it.
Now, the accident in itself is a different story. The trail there is still ongoing. It will be very difficult to blame a single person though every single person could have prevented the accident. The controller by separating the aircraft 30min. prior, the engineers by better informing the ATCO of what he is doing on a live system, the Russian pilot by following TCAS orders timely and precisely, Munich (Frankfurt?)center by intervening much earlier.
All in all this is freak accident. I know that midair collisions have happened before but ENRT in a virtually empty airspace?