The Young Son
05-09-2006, 10:58 PM
From Ninemsn World News
A self-confessed German cannibal has been jailed for life after a court found him guilty of murder for killing and partly eating an allegedly willing victim he had met on the Internet.
At a retrial, the court in Frankfurt found that Armin Meiwes, known as the "Cannibal of Rotenburg", slaughtered a man to satisfy his dark sexual urges.
Judge Klaus Drescher described Meiwes, who sliced off his victim's penis while he was still conscious so they could eat it together, as "psychologically ill" but said he was responsible for his actions.
But the judge rejected the prosecution's demand that Meiwes be disqualified from release after serving a minimum 15 years, meaning he may not spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Meiwes, 44, immediately indicated that he would appeal, signalling another round in a long legal process that has laid bare a hitherto secret underworld of cannibalism in Germany.
It was the second time Meiwes had been tried for killing Bernd Juergen Brandes in Rotenburg, Meiwes' home town, in western Germany in 2001.
He was originally convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2004.
But on appeal, a federal judge threw the sentence out because it was too lenient and ordered a retrial on the higher charge of murder.
Meiwes, a smartly dressed computer technician, insisted throughout both trials that his victim had a death wish and had begged to be killed and eaten, saying it was the "ultimate kick" both of them were seeking.
"He had wanted everything just the way it eventually happened," he said last week.
In a letter to Brandes' boyfriend, Meiwes apologised for killing him but said he had met "a beautiful death."
Meiwes met Brandes, an engineer from Berlin, after advertising on the Internet for a "slaughter victim" and invited him to his rambling farm house.
Brandes, who had written a will, bought a one-way rail ticket, while Meiwes set up a beer-tent table in his house to serve as a butcher's block.
The two men made a videotape of their fatal encounter. It showed them having sex, then Meiwes severing Brandes' engorged penis, which the two men fried and tried to eat.
After a bleeding Brandes lost consciousness, Meiwes stabbed him in the throat and cut away other parts of his body.
He admitted he eventually ate some 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds) of the flesh, accompanied by potatoes and a pepper or wine sauce, served on "good crockery".
His lawyers argued that he was not guilty of murder but rather of the crime of "killing on demand", which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Psychologists said in evidence that Meiwes, who showed little emotion in court, was a deeply disturbed and lonely man but agreed that he was mentally fit to stand trial.
Meiwes testified that his fantasies about eating flesh dated back 30 years. He said that after his father abandoned his family, he realised that he wanted to eat a school friend as a way of keeping somebody with him forever.
He admitted he was still having cannibal fantasies while in prison, which prosecutors said indicated a high risk he would try to kill and eat somebody again.
Meiwes was arrested months after killing Brandes when an Austrian student noticed another Internet advertisement and alerted the police.
Investigators found that he had been in touch with more than 200 people who shared his fantasies, while Meiwes himself said there were about 800 cannibals in Germany who hoped to fulfil their urges.
His story inspired a US-made horror film entitled "Butterfly, A Grimm Love Story", but Meiwes succeeded in blocking its release on the grounds that it infringed his privacy.
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This is just disgusting. Serves him right IMO. Hannibal Lector eat your heart out (no pun intended). At least Hopkins' man had some sense of taste. But this goes to show how many people out there are capable of such animosity.
A self-confessed German cannibal has been jailed for life after a court found him guilty of murder for killing and partly eating an allegedly willing victim he had met on the Internet.
At a retrial, the court in Frankfurt found that Armin Meiwes, known as the "Cannibal of Rotenburg", slaughtered a man to satisfy his dark sexual urges.
Judge Klaus Drescher described Meiwes, who sliced off his victim's penis while he was still conscious so they could eat it together, as "psychologically ill" but said he was responsible for his actions.
But the judge rejected the prosecution's demand that Meiwes be disqualified from release after serving a minimum 15 years, meaning he may not spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Meiwes, 44, immediately indicated that he would appeal, signalling another round in a long legal process that has laid bare a hitherto secret underworld of cannibalism in Germany.
It was the second time Meiwes had been tried for killing Bernd Juergen Brandes in Rotenburg, Meiwes' home town, in western Germany in 2001.
He was originally convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2004.
But on appeal, a federal judge threw the sentence out because it was too lenient and ordered a retrial on the higher charge of murder.
Meiwes, a smartly dressed computer technician, insisted throughout both trials that his victim had a death wish and had begged to be killed and eaten, saying it was the "ultimate kick" both of them were seeking.
"He had wanted everything just the way it eventually happened," he said last week.
In a letter to Brandes' boyfriend, Meiwes apologised for killing him but said he had met "a beautiful death."
Meiwes met Brandes, an engineer from Berlin, after advertising on the Internet for a "slaughter victim" and invited him to his rambling farm house.
Brandes, who had written a will, bought a one-way rail ticket, while Meiwes set up a beer-tent table in his house to serve as a butcher's block.
The two men made a videotape of their fatal encounter. It showed them having sex, then Meiwes severing Brandes' engorged penis, which the two men fried and tried to eat.
After a bleeding Brandes lost consciousness, Meiwes stabbed him in the throat and cut away other parts of his body.
He admitted he eventually ate some 20 kilogrammes (44 pounds) of the flesh, accompanied by potatoes and a pepper or wine sauce, served on "good crockery".
His lawyers argued that he was not guilty of murder but rather of the crime of "killing on demand", which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Psychologists said in evidence that Meiwes, who showed little emotion in court, was a deeply disturbed and lonely man but agreed that he was mentally fit to stand trial.
Meiwes testified that his fantasies about eating flesh dated back 30 years. He said that after his father abandoned his family, he realised that he wanted to eat a school friend as a way of keeping somebody with him forever.
He admitted he was still having cannibal fantasies while in prison, which prosecutors said indicated a high risk he would try to kill and eat somebody again.
Meiwes was arrested months after killing Brandes when an Austrian student noticed another Internet advertisement and alerted the police.
Investigators found that he had been in touch with more than 200 people who shared his fantasies, while Meiwes himself said there were about 800 cannibals in Germany who hoped to fulfil their urges.
His story inspired a US-made horror film entitled "Butterfly, A Grimm Love Story", but Meiwes succeeded in blocking its release on the grounds that it infringed his privacy.
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This is just disgusting. Serves him right IMO. Hannibal Lector eat your heart out (no pun intended). At least Hopkins' man had some sense of taste. But this goes to show how many people out there are capable of such animosity.