'Gentleman' Cannibal Poses Legal Dilemma
1 hour, 28 minutes ago Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By David Crossland

BERLIN (Reuters) - Armin Meiwes, the German computer expert who gained
worldwide notoriety by killing and eating a willing victim, stands trial on
Wednesday in a case of sexually inspired cannibalism so perplexing it could
make legal history.



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 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.


Meiwes's lawyer 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.


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 Ermel.


"He defrosted it little by little and ate it."


Police arrested Meiwes over a year later, in December 2002, after a tip-off
from someone who had spotted another of his adverts on the Internet.


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.


Meiwes told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag last 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."


Prosecutors in the city of Kassel say a psychiatric examination found Meiwes
is not insane but they added that his victim may have been incapable of
rational thought.


So while prosecutors acknowledge the victim said he wanted to die, they are
seeking a life sentence on a charge of murder motivated by sexual urges.


Meiwes's lawyer wants him to be convicted of "killing on request," a form of
illegal euthanasia which carries a sentence of six months to five years.


The problem, legal experts say, is that Meiwes's victim wanted to be eaten.
That could make a murder charge difficult to apply, while the lesser charge
of manslaughter carries a term of 15 years or considerably less, after which
Meiwes would be free.


Professor Arthur Kreuzer of the Institute for Criminology at Giessen
University, said the case might make legal history.


"This is killing undertaken for both killer and victim and cannot be
regarded as the worst case of premeditated killing.


"But I don't think it is a killing on request either because it was not an
altruistic, but an egoistic deed."





Kreuzer said the case may go as high as the Federal Constitutional Court and
that prosecutors may be forced to consult new medical experts to assess
Meiwes's mental state.

Meiwes's lawyer has revealed that his client had four other guests in his
home, but let them all go.

"There was a teacher, a cook, a hotel employee and a student. He had them
hanging from the ceiling head down and they had no chance of freeing
themselves. One felt sick, the other didn't want to go on, he let them all
down."

Ermel said Meiwes chatted about cannibalism with at least 280 like-minded
people on the Internet. In Germany about 200 people on the Internet were
offering to be slaughtered, 30 ready to do the slaughtering and 10 to 15
wanting to watch, he said.