A miscarriage of justice which deprived a German of liberty for thirteen years. Manfred Genditzki is “not a murderer, he is acquitted, and thus cleared”. So said a spokesperson for the Munich court in Bavaria after the trial of a 63-year-old man who spent more than 13 years in prison for a murder he did not have. committed, ending a spectacular case of miscarriage of justice in the country.
German justice had declared him guilty in 2010 of the murder two years earlier of an 87-year-old woman. He had been sentenced to life in what local media called “the bathtub murder.”
Manfred Genditzki has always claimed his innocence
The woman had been found dead in her bathtub, and Manfred Genditzki, who was then working as a janitor at the residence where she lived, was accused of hitting her during an argument and then killing her. The conviction was upheld at an appeal trial in 2012.
This calm and uneventful man had always proclaimed his innocence. After several years of struggle, his new lawyer managed to obtain new expertise. A new thermal analysis taking into account the temperature of the water thus concluded at a completely different time of death, relieving Manfred Genditzki of all suspicion.
A second expertise based on a computer simulation also showed that the death could have been accidental. Doubts about his guilt became so evident that he was released last August.
Compensation should be paid
He has since lived with his family again and works as a driver in a cheese factory. The prosecution itself had called for a dismissal, which could be pronounced “on the basis of new methods” which were not available to the investigators when the judgment was pronounced, explained one of its spokespersons . “It is a tragedy for which it is difficult to find words,” he added.
Manfred Genditzki must still be compensated by the state coffers for these 4,915 days wrongfully spent in prison. German law provides for 75 euros in compensation per day, which would give a total sum of almost 369,000 euros for all the years of freedom lost.