Police officer faces chargesover threats of violence

22 June 2004

FRANKFURT – A top Frankfurt police officer is facing charges after he ordered threats of violence against a man later convicted of the 2002 kidnapping and murder of a wealthy German banker’s 11-year-old son.

A Frankfurt court said Tuesday that the trial of the city’s former deputy police chief, Wolfgang Daschner would begin later this year.

The case follows Daschner’s admission that he ordered an officer questioning Magnus Gaefgen to threaten him with “intense pain” unless he helped police to locate the boy, Jakob von Metzler, who had been kidnapped on his way home from school with his kidnappers demanding a EUR one billion ransom.

Police had hoped that the boy might still be alive before Gaefgen, who later admitted to killing Jakob after kidnapping him, led them to his body at a lake outside Frankfurt.

Gaefgen is currently serving a life sentence in prison with the possibility of parole only after 18 years.

Despite public expressions of sympathy for Daschner’s position in the case, the Frankfurt prosecutor in February charged both him and the police officer involved in questioning Gaefgen with offences involving the threats.

Subject: German news