A German engineer who killed and ate a willing victim in a high-profile case that shocked the country, must serve a life sentence for murder after a court rejected his appeal.
The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe threw out the appeal by Armin Meiwes, who had argued that he could not be convicted of murder because his victim had agreed to be killed and eaten.
Meiwes had found his victim, Bernd-Juergen Brandes, over the internet. An IT manager, Brandes had posted an advert for someone to "obliterate his life and leave no trace". Brandes met Meiwes in Rotenburg in March 2001. There, the cannibal videotaped himself severing Brandes's penis with a knife before both men tried to eat it.
Bleeding profusely, Brandes fell unconscious. With the video recorder still rolling, Meiwes laid him out on a bench, kissing him on the lips before plunging a knife into his throat. He suspended the victim on a hook and froze 30kg of flesh in parcels and later ate some with cabbage and potatoes.
A German court had initially convicted Meiwes of manslaughter and sentenced him to eight years in jail in 2004. But a Frankfurt court in May 2006 overturned that conviction and threw out the defence argument that Meiwes had acted on his victim's request, in a crime similar to euthanasia.
The Frankfurt court said Meiwes was psychologically sick but fully aware of his actions. Meiwes killed Brandes "because he wanted to slaughter and eat his flesh. He had achieved the biggest kick of his life," the judge said at the time. Germany's top court upheld that ruling on Friday.
- (Reuters)