Almost 30 years after the murder of a 60-year-old master optician from Frankfurt, charges have now been brought against the alleged perpetrator.

It is a 48-year-old man from Ober-Ramstadt, as the Frankfurt public prosecutor announced on Tuesday.

At the time of the crime he is said to have been 20 years old.

The investigators got on to him by re-evaluating the exhibits that had been stored for years using the latest investigation methods, it is said.

It was about the evaluation of DNA, but also about dactyloscopic traces.

Catherine Iskandar

Responsible editor for the "Rhein-Main" department of the Sunday newspaper.

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However, the defendant is said not to have committed the crime alone.

Also accused is a 29-year-old acquaintance of Turkish nationality who is said to have fled to his home country in the mid-1990s.

Referring to the accused, senior public prosecutor Nadja Niesen said he was suspected of having killed the victim on January 20, 1994, together with a then 29-year-old acquaintance, out of greed and to enable or cover up a robbery.

The Frankfurt district court is now deciding whether to open main proceedings.

Victims of Turkish origin

According to police investigations, the two suspects are said to have visited the victim of Turkish origin in the early afternoon of that day in January in the rooms of his contact lens institute on Grosse Eschenheimer Straße in order to steal his valuables and income.

The accused's acquaintance is said to have been a customer of the master optician.

The public prosecutor's office said that he knew the victim's habits and spatial circumstances.

In the shop, the young men are said to have tied the injured man's hands and feet, gagged him and blindfolded him.

According to the public prosecutor, while they were looking for the valuables, the victim managed to free himself.

In order to prevent the victim from recognizing his customer and to be able to continue the robbery undisturbed, the accused and his accomplice are said to have decided to kill the man.

According to the indictment, they stabbed the victim four times in the front of the neck with a knife.

One of the stitches reached down to her spine.

Then they are said to have had a massive impact on the victim's neck by choking him with a scarf and presumably also choking him, so that his left thyroid cartilage ruptured, i.e. the largest cartilage of the larynx.

Even after that, the alleged perpetrators did not let go of the master optician.

They inflicted further stab wounds on his chin and under his left eye.

The sixty-year-old ultimately died from suffocation or strangulation in connection with the high blood loss.

After the crime, the two young men are said to have fled with several bank cards and Euro checks and the daily income of at least 1000 marks and the victim's wristwatch.

Accomplice fled to Turkey

The accused's alleged accomplice, who is a Turkish national, fled to Turkey in 1995 at the latest, so the proceedings against him are being conducted separately.

The police decided a few years ago to reopen the case.

After initially unsuccessful investigations, these were resumed in December 2017 and the remaining evidence was examined according to today's standards, as senior public prosecutor Nadja Niesen said.

"As a result, both dactyloscopic and DNA traces, which were secured at the immediate crime scene, led to strong suspicion against the accused." He was arrested on March 22, 2021 and has been in custody since then.

So far, he has not commented on the allegations.