Munich: Briton on trial for murder after 45 years

4Five years after the alleged murder of a Munich man, a 70-year-old Briton has had to stand trial in the Munich I regional court since Thursday. Investigators took on this cold case again: They compared fingerprints from the crime scene with the prints stored in the British AFIS file (automated fingerprint identification system) – one hit led to the British pensioner. At the beginning of the trial, the defendant, who the public prosecutor accuses of murder out of greed, was silent. He gave no information about himself or the allegations, court spokesman Laurent Lafleur said.

According to the Munich I public prosecutor's office, the Munich resident met the defendant shortly before New Year's Eve 1978. On December 30th he took him to his apartment. The 69-year-old man hoped that there would be “consensual sexual intercourse” between them that evening. After visiting an “adult cinema,” they returned to the apartment.

1000 marks in cash and a gold ring as loot

However, the defendant's intention was to search for valuables in the apartment and to prevent or “break” the victim's resistance through the use of force. When the Munich man was in the bathroom, the defendant grabbed a heavy mortar that was lying on a chest of drawers and hit the man in the head with it from behind. He initially “accepted” his death here.

He then continued to hit his head with the pestle “to finally stop him from crying out for help or screaming in pain.” The man then searched the apartment for cash and hit his victim again, who died as a result of the blow.

The man had foreseen death at the latest during the last blows “as a certain consequence of his further actions”. He said he carried out the blows with the intention of preventing others from becoming aware of the crime. After the man had cleaned himself and the Stößl and put it back on the dresser, he left the apartment with a gold ring and probably cash amounting to 1,000 marks, according to the indictment. He later threw the ring away so as not to be associated with the crime.