The trial of Mr Armin Meiwes, the German computer expert who gained worldwide notoriety by killing and eating a willing victim, is to begin, in a case of sexually inspired cannibalism so perplexing it could make legal history.
Mr Meiwes (42) described by his lawyer as a "gentleman of the old school", has confessed to killing a Berlin man who answered an advertisement he had posted on the Internet seeking a fit man "for slaughter."
They met in Mr Meiwes's elegant half-timbered home in the town of Rotenburg, central Germany, in March 2001. Meiwes killed the man, named only as Bernd-Juergen B., with a kitchen knife and filmed the deed on video tape which may be shown at the trial.
Mr Meiwes's lawyer Mr Harald Ermel said it took the victim nearly 10 hours to bleed to death and that he had repeatedly urged Meiwes to keep on cutting him.
Mr Meiwes cut up the body and stored parts in his freezer. "He believes he ate about 20 kilograms and there were about 10 kilograms left over," said Mr Ermel.
"He defrosted it little by little and ate it."
Police arrested Mr Meiwes over a year later, in December 2002, after a tip-off from someone who had spotted another of his adverts on the Internet.
Mr Meiwes is expected to repeat his confession at the trial that will be attended by reporters from all over the world. He is already planning to write his memoirs, his lawyer said.
Mr Meiwes told German newspaper
Welt am Sonntaglast week: "I am guilty and regret what I did." He said he had eaten his victim because he wanted to make him part of himself, a desire that he had satisfied and that would not recur.
Professor Andreas Marneros, director of the Halle Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, said: "This is cannibalism as a sexual perversion, it's a phenomenon that has been known about for centuries. I have examined four such people."