Free Republic

He arrived laughing and joking. Just over two hours later Armin Meiwes, the self-confessed German cannibal who killed and ate another man, left a stunned courtroom scarcely able to believe his luck. After a unique two-month trial that has gripped both Germany and the wider world with its gory details, a judge on Friday sentenced Meiwes to a mere eight and a half years in jail after ruling that he was guilty of manslaughter and not murder. The prosecution had demanded a 15-year-term. But Judge Volker Mütze said he accepted the cannibal's argument that the man he met through the...