Zoom Image
Kidnapped and buried: Ten-year-old Ursula Herrmann
Photograph:
Lka Bayern / dpa
The convicted kidnapper of the girl Ursula Herrmann, who has been in prison for 15 years, is to be released soon. He had been found guilty of extortionate kidnapping resulting in death. As the Lübeck Regional Court announced after a hearing, the rest of his life sentence is to be suspended. Until the decision is final, the man remains in prison, said a court spokesman.
According to his defender, this is expected to take another week or so. That's how long the public prosecutor's office has to file a complaint, lawyer Walter Rubach told the German Press Agency. Previously, the "Bild" newspaper had reported on the date. However, a complaint is unlikely, Rubach said. Therefore, his client will probably be able to leave prison on June 7.
The case of Ursula Herrmann is one of the most sensational crimes in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. The girl had been abducted in 1981 at the Ammersee in Bavaria and buried in a box. The ten-year-old suffocated in it. Finally, in May 2008, the alleged perpetrator was arrested in Schleswig-Holstein and taken into custody. In March 2010, he was convicted by the Regional Court of Augsburg. He served his sentence in Lübeck because of his move to northern Germany. The man maintains his innocence to this day.
According to the Criminal Code, a life sentence can be suspended after 15 years if the offender was not guilty of anything during the detention period. In the 15 years of imprisonment, the pre-trial detention is also included.
According to the investigation, Ursula had cycled through a forest near her hometown of Eching am Ammersee on September 15, 1981, when a perpetrator tore her off her bike. He locked the girl in a box, which he buried. In it, the child died after a short time because the ventilation system did not work. A ransom of two million Deutschmarks was demanded from her parents, even though Ursula had long since died.
Weeks later, the buried box containing the body was discovered. But even the securing of evidence at the crime scene became a fiasco, and the investigating senior public prosecutor later spoke of a "forensic squad". In the end, it took almost 27 years for the violent crime to be solved.
To this day, the traces in the case are checked again and again. Most recently, an expert opinion was prepared at the University of Zurich on the tape recorder that was seized from the convict and for which blackmail calls are said to have been used. According to the expertise, the audio device should rather not be considered as a tool of crime.
SAK/DPA