Man eats Internet friend


A SELF-DECLARED cannibal has told a German court in chilling detail how he killed and ate a man he says consented to be dissected and consumed in front of a running video camera.

In matter-of-fact tones in front of a hushed court, Armin Meiwes explained how an obsession with cannibalism developed as a child and eventually led him to kill and eat a fellow human being.

"I had the fantasy, and in the end I fulfilled it," he said.

He had the chance to kill and feast on other apparently willing victims, he added, saying "hundreds and thousands are out there looking to be eaten," but passed up the opportunity because they were not the right type.

The macabre case is unprecedented in German legal history.

Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer technician who says he regrets what he did, admits killing, but insists it was not murder as he was only doing what he had been asked.

Testifying on the opening day of his trial for murder, he said his fantasy began between the ages of eight and 12, when he would imagine killing, carving up and eating schoolfriends he liked.

Meiwes, dressed smartly in a dark jacket and tie, said he felt lonely as a child after his father and two older brothers abandoned the family.

He longed for a younger brother. "But then I realised one day that was not enough." He soon began imagining a friend he could keep for ever by consuming him. "Slim and blond, that would have been the type," he said.

It also aroused him sexually, Meiwes admitted, although he denied that sex was linked to the alleged murder.

"I didn't want to have sex with the partner I chose to slaughter. That had nothing to do with it."

Horror films and seeing animals slaughtered fuelled his imagination.

Cannibalism is not a crime under German law. Meiwes is charged with murder for the purposes of sexual satisfaction and "disturbing the peace of the dead" for carving up the body.

State prosecutor Marcus Koehler claimed Meiwes had always intended to kill and that he took advantage of a mental disorder in the dead man, Bernd Juergen Brandes.

If convicted, he faces life in prison. A verdict is due early next year.

Defence lawyers say Meiwes is guilty at worst of "killing on demand," which is punishable by up to five years in jail.

Meiwes, who has admitted killing, said he contacted Brandes, a 43-year-old Berlin engineer, after advertising via the internet for someone willing to be eaten.

The whole scenario was recorded on video, reportedly by mutual agreement.

Brandes travelled to his house in Rotenburg, near Kassel, after settling up his personal affairs. At one point he demurred but was persuaded to carry on, the prosecution said.

After Brandes downed sleeping tablets and whiskey, Meiwes cut off Brandes' penis which they planned to eat together, but found that due to its consistency, it was inedible "even when fried".

After a while Brandes became unconscious.

"Spurred by sexual motives," said Koehler, Meiwes laid him on a bench, stabbed him and hung his body from a hook in the ceiling of his kitchen.

The accused said he kissed his "friend" first, "then I did it".

He dissected the corpse, slicing off 30 kg of the flesh which he stored in a freezer. He later ate two-thirds of it.

"With every bite, my memory of him grew stronger."

The case did not emerge until an Austrian student spotted another internet advertisement by Meiwes and alerted police.

Officers who examined a mass of computer equipment and videos found at his home tapped into a hitherto hidden cannibal scene.

Meiwes said he later met five other people who had also offered themselves via the internet.

One wanted to be beheaded, but Meiwes did not like him and thought him too fat. Another backed out when the accused told him, "if you come here, you have to realise that it will be for the last time".

Agence France-Presse