Cannibal tells court: it was like taking Communion

By TONY PATERSON in Berlin

At first it seemed more like an innocent childhood confidence betrayed to some agony aunt than the confession of a cannibal.

Forty-two-year-old Armin Meiwes sat quietly in the dock of a court in the German city of Kassel yesterday and told judges what had driven him to kill a man and then eat him.

"I felt completely alone. I wanted an imaginary brother, someone who could be part of me. I dreamed of someone like the teenager Sandy in the American TV series Flipper," Meiwes told the court.

Meiwes, who appeared in court for the fist time since his arrest in December 2002 yesterday, stands accused of using the internet to seek out "young men for real slaughter and consumption" and murdering his victim, Bernd Jurgen Brandes, for "sexual satisfaction".

Meiwes said yesterday that he felt "hatred, fury and joy" while killing Brandes. "It was almost like Communion - belief and the memory of the person are renewed," he said.

During yesterday's hearing he confessed to killing 41-year-old Brandes at his home in March 2001 and subsequently eating parts of his victim's body, which he kept in his deep-freeze. Prior to the act, Meiwes had cut off his victim's penis, which both men consumed.

The trial, believed to be the first case in legal history to involve a self-confessed cannibal and an apparently willing victim, has shocked public opinion, attracted global media attention and left the German courts with a seemingly intractable legal problem.

Yesterday the court heard how the former computer expert, who lived alone in a 44-room timbered farmhouse near the town of Rotenburg, had begun advertising on the internet for a suitable victim in early 1999 under the pseudonym "Franky the master butcher".

Eighteen months later he aroused the interest of Brandes, an unmarried Berlin computer engineer. State prosecutor Marcus Koehler described Brandes as an individual who "suffered from severe psychological problems and felt a desire to destroy himself". Meiwes' lawyer said Brandes "could not wait to be eaten".

The two men finally met at Meiwes' home on March 9. In an interview with Germany's Stern magazine earlier this year Meiwes described how Brandes had drugged himself with sleeping pills and two bottles of a cold remedy before going ahead with the cannibalistic ritual.

He told the magazine how the two had cuddled on the floor of a special slaughter chamber in Meiwes' attic before Brandes urged his internet acquaintance to "cut the thing off".

Meiwes' lawyer said yesterday that Brandes took nearly 10 hours to bleed to death from wounds inflicted by Meiwes and that he had repeatedly urged him to keep on cutting him. Meiwes then cut up Brandes body and stored the parts in his freezer.

"He believes he ate about 20kg of the flesh. He defrosted it little by little and ate it. There were about 10kg left when police found him," he added.

Meiwes continued to search for likely victims on the internet for a further 18 months. He lured a total of four men to his Rotenburg home. Meiwes told Stern that he wrapped the men in cellophane and even marked out their body parts for possible consumption. However, after it emerged than none of his potential new victims wanted to be killed but were merely interested in acting out their fantasies, he let them go.

The "Rotenburg cannibal" was finally unmasked in December last year after a student saw his internet advertisements and tipped off German police. Meiwes' defence was that he killed a man who "wanted to be killed".

The case may have appalled the German public and prompted lurid headlines in the country's tabloid press. But more perplexing for judges presiding over the case is the legal dilemma it poses. Prosecutors have disclosed that a psychiatric examination carried on on Meiwes found that he was not insane, but they acknowledged that Brandes said he wanted to die although he may not have been capable of rational thought.

As a result the prosecution has asked judges to convict Meiwes of "murder motivated by sexual urges", which carries a life sentence. However, Meiwes' defence lawyers have called for their client to be convicted of "killing on request", a form of illegal euthanasia which carries a maximum five-year sentence.

Legal experts said yesterday that judges could find it difficult to sentence Meiwes for murder given that his victim wanted to be eaten. They said that, if he was convicted of manslaughter, he would serve a maximum 15-year jail term.

The legal dilemma

The prosecution wants Armin Meiwes convicted of "murder motivated by sexual urges". It carries a life sentence.

If convicted on manslaughter he would serve a maximum 15-year jail term.

The defence wants Meiwes convicted of "killing on request", a form of legal euthanasia, which carries a maximum five-year sentence.

- INDEPENDENT