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Cannibal Case Grips Germany
Suspect Says Internet Correspondent Volunteered to Die
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A26
BERLIN, Dec. 3 -- In a case that has both fascinated and revolted Germans, a 42-year-old computer technician went on trial Wednesday for the cannibalistic killing of a Berlin man who allegedly volunteered to be consumed after the two met in an Internet chat room and exchanged e-mails about gruesome fantasies.
Armin Meiwes, from a small town in the state of Hesse, is charged with murder for sexual satisfaction in the killing of Bernd Juergen Brandes, 43, a microchip engineer from Berlin. Meiwes has acknowledged carrying out the killing but said it was with the victim's consent and not for sexual satisfaction.
In late 2000, in an Internet chat room devoted to cannibalism, Meiwes posted a message "seeking well-built man, 18-30 years old, for slaughter," investigators said. A few months later, Brandes replied: "I offer myself to you and will let you dine from my live body. Not butchery, dining!!"
Brandes visited Meiwes' home in March 2001 for the express purpose of being killed and eaten, according to statements from Meiwes and police and media accounts of a videotape of the killing. The two dined on part of Brandes' body together before Meiwes stabbed him to death, according to court testimony.
The trial, which is taking place in the central city of Kassel, has attracted so much attention that reporters had to participate in a lottery to get court seats. Germany has no laws against cannibalism, and prosecutors were forced to employ a little-used murder statute in what is being billed as the country's first cannibalism prosecution.
Meiwes is also accused of "disturbing the peace of the dead" for carving up the body, whose various parts he froze in shrink-wrapped packages, according to police. Between the date of the killing, March 9, 2001, and his arrest in December 2001, Meiwes is said to have consumed most of the flesh after barbecuing it in his garden, where he had also buried Brandes' bones.
Meiwes faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
The defendant's attorney, Harald Ermel, said his client -- dubbed Hannibal of Hesse by the German media -- should at most be convicted of "killing on demand," a charge generally confined to euthanasia cases that carries a maximum five-year term.
Meiwes has said he plans to write his memoirs, and according to Ermel, publishers are already competing for the rights.
The case has elicited a great deal of pop psychology in Germany, including allegations that Meiwes' relationship with his late mother, a woman who is said to have been cold and distant, is to blame for his acknowledged psychosis. "My client is not a monster," Ermel said.
German police said that at least 400 people are active participants in various chat rooms on cannibalism, but authorities said they know of no other killings. At least one other person who responded to the Internet posting pleaded with Meiwes to kill him but was rejected because Meiwes said he was "too fatty," according to police. Four others who visited his home backed out at the last minute, and Meiwes agreed to their departure, investigators said.
Brandes, on the other hand, was apparently determined to die.
"My friend enjoyed dying, death," Meiwes said in a prison interview that was released Tuesday. "I only waited horrified for the end after doing the deed. It took so terribly long."
According to media accounts from the courtroom, Meiwes appeared at ease before a five-judge panel. He told the court that he first started fantasizing about cannibalism between the ages of 8 and 12, when he imagined eating schoolmates. He said horror movies heightened his desires.
"Slim and blond, that would have been the type," he told the court, admitting that he found such thoughts sexually arousing but denying the charge of sexually motivated murder.
"I had the fantasy, and in the end I fulfilled it," he said Wednesday. "I didn't want to have sex with the partner I chose to slaughter. That had nothing to do with it."
Police arrested Meiwes on Dec. 10, 2001, after receiving a tip that he was boasting about having eaten Brandes and was seeking other volunteers on the Internet.
After their initial e-mails, Meiwes, using the name Franky, and Brandes, using the name Cator, exchanged numerous explicit e-mails. Brandes then traveled to Meiwes' home in Rotenburg near Kassel on March 9, 2001.
Before leaving Berlin, Brandes sold his possessions and wiped clean the hard drive on his computer. Upon meeting Meiwes at the train station, Brandes said, "I am your Cator. I am your flesh," the defendant recounted.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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