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Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance/dpa
A verdict has been handed down in the case of the brutally killed 19-year-old Kezhia from Klötze in Saxony-Anhalt. On Monday, the Stendal regional court sentenced a 43-year-old to life imprisonment and an order to pay 40,000 euros in compensation to his survivors. The mother of the victim appeared as a co-plaintiff.
The court considered the murder characteristic of insidiousness to be fulfilled because the defendant stabbed the woman 32 times with a knife before, during or after sexual intercourse, who did not expect the attack and was unable to defend herself.
The married man and the victim are said to have had an extramarital relationship for years. At the beginning of March last year, according to the indictment, the accused drove the young woman in a van to a forest in the Gifhorn district and had consensual sex there. This is when the knife attack occurred.
The 19-year-old died within minutes. The defendant is said to have initially dumped the woman's body in a landfill. A few days later he burned the dead woman in a gravel quarry in the Lower Saxony community of Bahrdorf and buried the remains.
The 19-year-old was missing for almost seven weeks before her remains were discovered near Bahrdorf at the end of April. The accused, who also comes from the Klötze area, was then arrested under strong suspicion.
During the trial, the 43-year-old made a partial confession. He therefore admitted the killing, but cited self-defense and an exceptional mental situation. The chamber did not follow this in the circumstantial evidence process. The judgment is not yet final and an appeal to the Federal Court of Justice is possible.
ala/AFP