Court in Germany Sentences Man to 8 1/2 Years for Killing and Eating Man He Met Over Internet

TBO ^ | 1/30/04 | Frank Leth

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Germany (AP) - A German was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison Friday for killing, dismembering and eating another man who allegedly agreed to the arrangement over the Internet.

Armin Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer expert, had no "base motives" in the crime, a state court ruled, sparing him a murder conviction. Explaining the verdict, the presiding judge said Meiwes' intention was not evil but "the fulfillment of his fantasy."

His primary motive was "the wish to make another man part of himself," Judge Volker Muetze said. "Meiwes reached this bonding experience through the consumption of the flesh."

Prosecutors had sought a life sentence, calling Meiwes a "human butcher" who acted simply to "satisfy a sexual impulse." They said they would appeal.

The defense argued that since the victim volunteered to be killed and eaten, the crime should be classified a mercy killing, which carries a five-year maximum penalty.

Before the verdict, Meiwes looked calm, chatting with his attorney and occasionally grinning for cameras allowed inside the courtroom. After the sentence was read, he shook his lawyer's hand and nodded curtly to the photographers.

When his trial opened Dec. 3 in the central city of Kassel, Meiwes confessed in detail to killing Bernd Juergen Brandes, 43, in March 2001 at Meiwes' home in the town of Rotenburg.

Brandes traveled from Berlin in reply to an Internet advertisement seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption." Meiwes testified that Brandes wanted to be stabbed to death after drinking a bottle of cold medicine to lose consciousness.

"Bernd came to me of his own free will to end his life," Meiwes said in his closing statement in court Monday. "For him, it was a nice death."

Still, he said he regretted the killing.

"I had my big kick and I don't need to do it again," he said. "I regret it all very much, but I can't undo it."

A video he made of the act was shown to the court during a closed session.

A doctor testified that Brandes died from loss of blood and that the medication, along with a half-bottle of liquor and 20 sleeping pills he took beforehand, could not have lessened his pain.

Several experts have testified that Meiwes was fit to stand trial and was not mentally ill.

Police tracked down and arrested him in December 2002 after a student in Austria alerted them to a message Meiwes had posted on the Internet.

"If I hadn't been so stupid as to keep looking on the Internet, I would have taken my secret to the grave," Meiwes said in his closing statement.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

This is the U.N.

[Johnny_Cipher]

And the "Alferd Packer Clueless Noob Award" goes to ...

[Stone Mountain]

This is the U.N.

What does this mean?

[gov_bean_ counter]

I didn't know you could order out over the internet.

[laotzu]

"Meiwes' intention was not evil but "the fulfillment of his fantasy."

Of course, fantasies can never be evil.

What an absolutely, morally bankrupt society.

[07055]

SCOTUS will now cite this case as setting international standards allowing cannibalism in American.

[LibWhacker]

Wanting to eat a man isn't a "base motive" for murder? I must be losing my mind.

[JoJo Gunn]

ping

[mlbford2]

There is a certain website (which will remain nameless) where they polled the posters on whether this act was a crime. 65% of them said the police should not have interfered because it was consentual. Isn't that DUmb?

[RightthinkinAmerican]

I'll go out on a limb and guess he thinks 8 1/2 years is pretty light for killing and eating someone. Good ol' Germany - the people who brought you cyanide-gas shower heads.

[07055]

If you have the nerve to criticize bin Laden, they give you more than 8 1/2 years.

[RightthinkinAmerican]

Yes, we wouldn't want to come off as "unilateral cowboys" and speak out against murder/cannibalism! Why... we should ALL want to do what the "cool kids" do. If all the other countries legalized raping babies, we'd be branded as "go it aloners" for comdemning it. And Soros says the right wing are the Orwellians?

[laotzu]

65%?!!!

No wonder they are against our "starving children". It seems only a plump child, is a wanted child.

[RightthinkinAmerican]

The "1/2" a year was for serving him with Chardonnay, instead of a "fine Chianti and Fava beans" (f f f f F F f p t t). Ahhhh....

[RightthinkinAmerican]

Yes, that would be a hate crime.

[RightthinkinAmerican]

These are very sick, dangerous, morally bankrupt people. And we're expected to be aligned with the in the UN?

[FormerACLUmember]

Germany has become a degenerate political entity, now openly mocked throughout the world for this double atrocity.

The first atrocity is of course the utterly evil crime, and the second is the toilet of a socialist judiciary handing out this inappropriate "justice."

[Blue Screen of Death]

This guy is going to make a great kitchen trustee.

[JeeperFreeper]

How much is that per pound..oops... kilogram??

[onedoug]

It means secular-socialist Europe where no one is responsible for anything, where evil is denied and its aberrances treated with therepy.