"Prohibited interrogation methods": Trial of triple murder in Starnberg: Defense raises allegations of torture

In the trial of the alleged triple murder in Starnberg, the defense of one of the two defendants is making allegations of torture against the investigators. It is about the questioning of the main defendant. According to the police, he had confessed to the crime and named an accomplice. In a letter to the Munich II regional court, the lawyers of the alleged accomplice are now demanding that this statement not be admitted as evidence. You want to file the relevant application in court this Monday - shortly before an investigating officer is supposed to report on the testimony of the main defendant.

The "allegedly obtained information is based on prohibited methods of interrogation," it says.

The lawyers accuse the police of "humiliation, torture and mistreatment," as lawyer Alexander Stevens announced on Sunday.

A statement from the police was initially not available upon request.

"The cell was dark, apart from a neon lamp," the lawyers continue to write.

The accused, who incriminated her co-accused client in his testimony, was "either completely naked or only dressed in underpants and, in addition, only poorly provided with a brown blanket".

Due to severe neurodermatitis, the young man had "bloody spots all over his body".

Bloody spots all over the body

According to Stevens, the questioning of the German, during which, according to the police, he confessed to having shot his friend and his parents in their house in Starnberg, was not recorded.

Thereby "the torture (...) should obviously be concealed".

In the sensational criminal case, Stevens and his colleagues are defending the Slovak co-defendant (20), who is said to have driven the alleged main culprit to the family home and picked him up again after the crime.

The public prosecutor's office is convinced that the now 21-year-old main defendant wiped out the family on the night of January 2020 - shot a 60-year-old woman, her 64-year-old husband and their son.

He then stole the son's valuable collection of weapons.

Among other things, he is on trial for murder.

Compared to the case of Jakob von Metzler

Initially, the investigators assumed a different scenario.

Namely about the fact that the son shot his parents first and then himself.

He was found with the gun in hand and traces of smoke were found.

The lawyers, who now speak of torture, compare the allegations with those in the case of the murdered banker's son Jakob von Metzler.

"In view of the fact that in the case at hand the victims were already dead before the interrogation and in this case - unlike in the case of the child murderer Markus Gäfgen - specific torture methods were used (and not just threatened)," weighs the torture her client has suffered found out, much more difficult, it said in the statement from the lawyers.

The Frankfurt Regional Court awarded the convicted murderer Markus Gäfgen € 3,000 in compensation around ten years ago because the police had threatened him with torture. The interrogation on the morning of October 1, 2002 investigated the kidnapped boy’s whereabouts. Under pressure, Gäfgen revealed the hiding place of Jakob, whom he had already killed four days earlier.