German Cannibal Convicted Of Murder

(AP)  A man who admitted killing and eating an acquaintance he met on the Internet was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, following his retrial in a case that horrified Germany.

In announcing the verdict at the Frankfurt state court, presiding Judge Klaus Drescher described the killing as "a particularly perverse murder." Armin Meiwes, a 44-year-old computer technician, also was convicted of disturbing the peace of the dead.

"He acted out of self-seeking motives and has shown that, to this day, he does not regret his actions," Drescher said. Dressed in a gray suit, a despondent-looking Meiwes watched calmly as the verdict was read out.

During the first trial, Meiwes said Brandes asked him first to sever his penis — which the men unsuccessfully tried to eat.

A doctor also testified in the first trial that the video of the crime showed Brandes was still alive when Meiwes stabbed him in the throat hours later, despite the defendant's insistence his victim was already dead.

The retrial of Meiwes opened in January. It was held after a federal appeals court overturned his initial manslaughter conviction to allow prosecutors to seek a tougher sentence.

At the retrial, Meiwes renewed a detailed confession, telling the court his version of the grisly details of the March 2001 killing of Bernd Juergen Brandes at Meiwes' home in the central town of Rotenburg.

Meiwes said Brandes — who had traveled from Berlin after answering his Internet posting under the pseudonym "Franky" seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption" — wanted to be stabbed to death after drinking a bottle of cold medicine to lose consciousness.

On Tuesday, the judge said Brandes could still have been saved at the time of the stabbing.

The doctor said Brandes died from loss of blood and that cold medication he took beforehand— along with half a bottle of liquor and 20 sleeping pills — could not have lessened his pain.

The defendant testified this year that Brandes, 43, had wanted to "be eaten alive."

"Otherwise, I would never have done it," Meiwes, who captured the killing on video, told the court.

Meiwes also maintained that Brandes had urged him to carry out further killings after his death.

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