The German courts are more fucked up than ours by a long shot.
GERMAN COURT AWARDS CHILD MURDERER COMPENSATION FOR TORTURE THREAT BY POLICEMAN DESPERATE TO FIND KIDNAP VICTIM ALIVE
By Allan Hall
Mail Online
August 4, 2011
A court in Germany has awarded a child murderer nearly 3,000 pounds in compensation money because he was threatened with torture during his interrogation when police thought his captive was still alive.
Magnus Gaefgen was awarded the cash for 'mental suffering' when a police officer threatened him with pain unless he revealed where his victim was hidden.
In fact Gaefgen, now 36, had already strangled the boy, Jakob von Metzler, the son of a private banker in Frankfurt.
Gaefgen's victory before a German court comes after the European Court of Human Rights ruled three years ago - in a case that cost taxpayers close to 750,000 pounds - that his human rights were not breached and that he did not deserve a retrial.
Jakob, 11, was killed in 2002. The boy had got to know Gaefgen, then a law student, through his sister. On 27 September, 2002, Gaefgen lured him into his flat by pretending Jakob's sister had left a jacket there.
He then suffocated the child and sent a ransom demand to the family for a million euros.
The policeman in charge of the case, Wolfgang Dascher, believed the boy was still alive and threatened to harm Gaefgen unless he told him where the child was being held.
Gaefgen abandoned the boy's body under the jetty of a pond an hour's drive from Frankfurt.
On 30 September, at about 1am, Gaefgen collected the ransom at a tram station. He was placed under police surveillance and was arrested several hours later.
At this point, police thought Jakob was still alive and, under interrogation on 1 October, Gaefgen was told he could expect to undergo 'considerable suffering' if he persisted in refusing to disclose the child's whereabouts. As a result of those threats, he disclosed where he had hidden the child's body.
His confession was ruled inadmissible to be used in court against him as it was obtained under duress, in contravention of EU human rights laws. But on 28 July, 2003, he was found guilty of abduction and murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
It was found that despite the fact that he had been informed at the start of his trial of his right to remain silent and that all his earlier statements could not be used against him, he nevertheless again confessed that he had kidnapped and killed the boy and was sentenced to life.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that, because Mr Dascher and another policeman had been punished with fines and suspension, and because two courts in Germany had refused to hear Gaefgen's request for a retrial while acknowledging he should not have been threatened, he did not qualify for a new hearing.
The case of the punished police officers created considerable debate in Germany. Many thought Mr Dascher was a hero. Now comes the ruling of the court in Frankfurt which rewards Gaefgen with money.
Judge Christoph Hefter said the police who told Gaefgen he would be harmed were guilty of 'serious law breaking' which could only be redressed with money.
Bild, the country's biggest daily, posted on its website after Thursday's verdict: 'Judge, why couldn't you stop this? What cruelties did Jakob endure before his death?'
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