quote:

---

A German court on Thursday opened the retrial of a man whose conviction for killing and eating another man was overturned after prosecutors appealed it in hopes of securing a tougher sentence.

Armin Meiwes, 44, could face life in prison if convicted of murder by the state court in Frankfurt in a case whose grisly details appalled and fascinated Germans. The trial is scheduled to continue until early March.

In early 2004, a court in the central city of Kassel convicted Meiwes of manslaughter and sentenced him to 8 1/2 years in prison. He was spared a murder conviction, with the court arguing that perpetrator and victim used each other as means to an "ultimate climax."

[...]

Federal judges overturned the original ruling last year and ordered a retrial, ruling that the lower court failed to give sufficient consideration to that argument in rejecting the murder charge.

A grisly video Meiwes made of the act was shown to the court in Kassel. A doctor testified that Brandes died from loss of blood and that the medication, along with a half-bottle of liquor and 20 sleeping pills he took beforehand, could not have lessened his pain.

Several experts testified during the proceedings that Meiwes was fit to stand trial and was not mentally ill. His fitness to stand trial will be reassessed by the Frankfurt court.

---