German cannibal had 204 ‘applicants’

16 January 2004

KASSEL – Self-confessed gay cannibal Armin Meiwes had more than 200 “applicants” expressing wishes for him to slaughter and devour them, a court in Germany heard Friday.

Taking the witness stand in the precedent-setting murder case in Kassel, Hesse state police inspector Wolfgang Buch said Meiwes’ computer files showed he had received internet offers from 204 men in Germany, Britain and elsewhere.

Meiwes has admitted killing and partially eating one Berlin man he met via the Internet, but has steadfastly insisted he killed no one else.

However Buch told the court it is entirely possible that others may also have been his victims, despite the fact that investigators have unearthed no physical evidence that more than one person was killed.

“It is at this point in time impossible to say whether others among these 204 persons might also have been homicide victims,” Buch told the court.

In other testimony, the father of the sole known victim testified before the court Friday that his son had displayed no suicidal tendencies prior to his disappearance in March 2001.

Because Germany has no law against cannibalism, Meiwes is charged with murder “for sexual satisfaction” and “disturbing the peace of the dead” in the death of Brandes.

His defence is pressing for a lesser charge of “killing on demand” which carries a maximum five-year jail sentence and is normally applied in cases of “mercy killing”. Meiwes contends his victim had wanted to be killed and was aware of his fate.

But Brandes’ father, taking the witness stand Friday, said his won had never shown any signs of depression.

That supported earlier testimony by Brandes’ last male lover as saying Brandes was cheerful and showed no signs of depression ahead of his fateful encounter with Meiwes on 8 March 2001.

“Bernd-Juergen had absolutely no suicidal thoughts and had no crises or major problems of any kind,” testified the witness, who added that he and Brandes were making plans for their summer holidays when he suddenly vanished in March.

Also appearing before the court Friday was Meiwes’ father who described his son as having been a quiet and well-behaved little boy who never displayed any desire to harm anyone or anything.

The elder Meiwes testified before the court in Kassel that he had no inkling of his son’s purported “Hansel & Gretel” obsession.

However, he pointed out that he had had little contact with Armin since the Meiwes marriage broke up when the boy was 8 years old. Armin stayed with his mother when the elder Meiwes abandoned them in what he said was the result of long-standing domestic disputes.

Young Armin remained in the custody of his mother Waltraud while the father took an older son to live with him.

The defendant himself has told investigators he had a childhood obsession with the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel”, and was especially fascinated by the passage in which the storybook witch “fattened up little Hansel” in hopes of cooking and eating him.

This fixation may have been exacerbated when his mother moved to the rambling, 30-room, half-timbered farm house in Rotenburg an der Fulda when he was 16.

Earlier, a former boyhood friend described Armin as having been a polite and mild-mannered mama’s boy.

The witness said Meiwes was firmly under the thumb of his mother who ordered him about the house “like a drill sergeant” and who chaperoned him on his rare dates with women and who even insisted on accompanying him on field exercises when he was in the military.

“The other soldiers in his company thought that was pretty weird, to say the least,” the witness testified.

When he was 20 she even had the temerity to post a stick-on label saying “Kinderzimmer” (Child’s Room) on the door of Armin’s bedroom. He never removed the label, the witness said, even after his mother died in 1999.

The witness said it was only after her death that Armin began talking about “horrible things” he had discovered while surfing the internet in search of gay companionship, the witness said.

Because Germany has no law against cannibalism, Meiwes is charged with murder “for sexual satisfaction” and “disturbing the peace of the dead” in the death of Brandes.

His defence is pressing for a lesser charge of “killing on demand” which carries a maximum five-year jail sentence and is normally applied in cases of “mercy killing”. Meiwes contends his victim wanted to be killed and was aware of his fate.

Meiwes was tracked down and arrested in December 2002 after police became aware of an advertisement he had placed on the Internet looking for volunteers willing to be killed and eaten.

Thousands of pornographic pictures depicting acts of violence and torture were also found at the house near the town of Rotenburg, south of Kassel.

One police witness said prosecutors were investigating another man who was allegedly plotting an act of cannibalism.

Meiwes was tracked down and arrested in December 2002 after police became aware of an advertisement he had placed on the internet looking for volunteers willing to be killed and eaten.

Thousands of pornographic pictures depicting acts of violence and torture were also found at the house near the town of Rotenburg, south of Kassel.

The trial continues. Sentencing is expected on 30 January.

DPA
Subject: German news