Life sentence for murder of girl 27 years ago

A German court on Friday handed a life sentence to a 66-year-old man convicted of abducting a 10-year-old girl — named only Stephanie in keeping with German privacy laws — from a park in the city of Weimar before sexually abusing and murdering her.

The sentence given by the court in the eastern city of Gera was in accordance with the demands of prosecutors, who said the accused had wanted to get rid of the girl after abusing her and killed her by throwing her off a 48-meter-high (157-foot) motorway bridge crossing a valley.

The accused had asserted during his trial that he had only dropped the girl off at the bridge, a claim that state prosecutor Ralf Mohrmann called not credible.

The defense attorney had called for his client to be acquitted of the murder charge, saying that the man had had no motive for killing the girl, as he had not considered it to be abuse when he asked her to undress in front of him.

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Damning testimony

The accused, who has previous convictions for sexual abuse of children, was arrested in Berlin in March.

His detention resulted from an operation by a special police commission in the city of Jena, also in Germany's east. The commission has been examining past cases of child abduction and sexual abuse in order to establish similarities with other crimes of the sort and potentially catch offenders who have previously slipped through the net.

According to German news magazine Spiegel, the testimony of one witness carried particular weight during the trial: The now 37-year-old woman said she recognized the accused as the man who had lured Stephanie away from the park in Weimar 27 years ago.

The witness said she had been with her friend Stephanie in the park when the accused offered the girl 50 marks (around €25, $28) to show him the way to the baroque Belvedere Palace, a popular tourist attraction in Weimar.

She said Stephanie had wanted to buy a bike with the money and left with the man, without ever returning.

The defendant had been adjudged to be responsible for his actions by a psychiatrist, who also said that he had shown no remorse for his former crimes during questioning in pre-trial detention.

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