Cannibal to taste justice

2004-01-30 07:18

Kassel, Germany - A German court is due on Friday to pass its verdict on a self-confessed cannibal who killed and ate a man he claims was a willing victim, in a macabre case that has fascinated and appalled Germany.

Armin Meiwes, 42, faces a life sentence if convicted of the murder of the other man, who had responded to his advertisement on the Internet for someone prepared to be consumed.

Meiwes has admitted slaying and carving up Bernd Juergen Brandes after sex and hours of sado-masochism which included frying the man's amputated penis, but insists it was all consensual.

Among the evidence examined by the court in the central city of Kassel has been hours of video footage taken of the events of March 10, 2001.

As well as gripping the country with the power of its graphic detail, the case has also turned an uncomfortable spotlight on a hitherto unacknowledged world of cannibalism and extreme fetishism.

Investigators found Meiwes had been in Internet contact with more than 200 people who shared his fantasies, and he claimed in court there were thousands more like him.

Applicants rejected

At least five other people also saying they were willing to be killed and eaten went to his house in Rotenburg, near Kassel, but either backed down or were rejected as not good enough.

The computer technician is accused of murder for sexual satisfaction, with prosecutors saying that although Brandes seemed willing, Meiwes exploited his disturbed state of mind to satisfy his own lust.

Meiwes is also accused of disturbing the peace of the dead for carving up the corpse. Cannibalism itself is technically not a crime in Germany.

In his defence, he has argued that he was fulfilling Brandes's death wish, and that while what he did might be horrific to normal society, he was guilty at worst of killing on demand, a lesser charge carrying a maximum sentence of five years.

The judges in Kassel also have the option of a manslaughter verdict, which is punishable by between five years and life.

Meiwes has publicly proclaimed his regret over what he did, saying he had been driven by an obsession that began during a lonely childhood when he had fantasised about a friend who would never leave him.

Psychologists testified that eating Brandes, 43, had been "the fulfilment of a lifetime dream" for Meiwes.

- AFP