- A German cannibal on trial for murder said he had been
searching the Internet for another person to eat when he was arrested for
consuming his first allegedly willing victim.
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- Months after killing, dissecting and eating a man he
met via the Internet, Armin Meiwes wrote in an e-mail to a friend: "I
hope I will soon find another victim, the flesh has almost all gone."
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- Meiwes, a 42-year-old computer technician, told a court
in Kassel, central Germany, that his first victim, whom he claims volunteered
to be killed, had "disappointed me in many ways".
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- The man, a 43-year-old Berlin engineer named Bernd-Juergen
Brandes, had lied about his age, claiming in e-mails to be 36, and did
not want to try to get to know Meiwes better before his planned death,
the accused said.
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- Meiwes denies murder, insisting Brandes was a willing
accomplice.
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- "I saw the killing as helping him, helping him to
die, helping him to kill himself," he said.
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- "That is a taboo for which I must justify myself
before God and the whole world."
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- He said he wished he had seen a psychologist about his
cannibal fantasies, "then things wouldn't have gone so far."
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- Explaining the later e-mail, he said: "It was still
my wish to slaughter a human, in other words, to dissect a body."
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- His plan, he added, was to share the final remains of
his previous victim with his next one before proceeding to the killing.
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- Prosecutors insist Meiwes is guilty of murder for taking
advantage of his victim's apparent death wish. If convicted, he faces life
in prison.
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- Defence lawyers argue that he is guilty only of "killing
on demand", which is punishable by up to five years in jail.
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