Man faces retrial for cannibalism

BERLIN — A self-confessed cannibal who killed and ate a willing victim faces a retrial Thursday after German courts deemed his original 8 ½-year sentence to be too lenient.

Armin Meiwes, 44, made world headlines at his first trial in late 2003 because of the bizarre nature of the case, which presented the German legal system with an unprecedented dilemma: Does killing a man who wants to be eaten constitute murder?

The Federal Criminal Court overturned his original manslaughter conviction and ordered a retrial on murder charges, and legal experts say the case could go as high as Germany's Supreme Court.

Meiwes, a computer repairman who said he had been obsessed with cannibalism since puberty, said he met Berlin computer engineer Bernd-Juergen Brandes via the Internet when he was seeking someone to kill and eat, and Brandes volunteered.

In March 2001, Meiwes invited Brandes to his home in Rotenburg, central Germany, stabbed him, cut up his body on a butcher's bench and captured it all on video.

The gory details shocked and fascinated the public and highlighted what experts said was extreme, Internet-fueled sadomasochism. Police estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people in Germany alone use Internet chat rooms to share fantasies about eating a person or being eaten.

Psychiatrists at his first trial described Meiwes as sane but deeply disturbed. Meiwes told the court he had fantasized about consuming a man to fill the void caused by the sudden departure of his father.

He had been in touch with hundreds of people on the Internet, where he posted ads seeking fit men, and had built a "slaughter room" in the sprawling, half-timber-style house left him by his late mother. He described her as domineering.

Britain's Sunday Times quoted Meiwes this week as saying: "I understand and regret deeply what I did but the victim wanted me to do it. Otherwise, I would never have touched him."

He continued to advertise for other victims. In December 2002, an Austrian student reported him to the police, and he was arrested.

A murder conviction would carry a life sentence. In Germany, which has no death penalty, that could mean 15 years or more.

Meiwes, described as articulate, polite and of above-average intelligence, has been working in the prison library in the central city of Kassel and is popular with fellow inmates, according to media reports. People who have met him describe him as strikingly normal.