A German court on Friday acquitted a man who has spent more than 13 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, in what is already considered one of the most serious cases of legal wrongdoing in the country.
Manfred Genditzki, 63, “is not a murderer and has been acquitted,” the spokesman for the court in Munich (in the state of Bavaria) said at the end of the trial.
In 2010, the court found him guilty of the murder of an 87-year-old woman, for which he was sentenced to life in prison for a crime that came to be known as the “bathtub murder”.
The woman was found dead in the bathtub of her home and Genditzki, who at the time worked as a doorman in the residence where the victim lived, was accused of assaulting and murdering the elderly woman during an argument.
The conviction was upheld on appeal in 2012, but Genditzki has always maintained his innocence.
After several years, the defendant’s new attorney managed to obtain a thermal analysis which, taking into account the temperature of the water, concluded that the time of death was completely different, clearing Genditzki of any suspicion.
In addition, a second opinion from an expert, based on a computer simulation, showed that the death may have been accidental.
Doubts about Genditzki’s guilt became so apparent that he was released last August, moved back in with his family and began working as a driver.
The prosecutor asked for the case to be filed “on the basis of new methods” that were not available to investigators when the verdict was handed down, the court spokesman explained. “This is a tragedy for which it is difficult to find words,” he added.
Genditzki must now be compensated by the German state for the 4,915 days he spent in prison. The law provides for 75 euros in compensation per day, which would add up to a total value of 369,000 euros for all the years of lost freedom.
Source: DN
