Around eight months after the acquittal of Manfred Genditzki in the so-called bathtub murder case, the Greens are demanding a report from the state government on the role of law enforcement authorities. “There have obviously been mistakes made here by both the investigative authorities and the judiciary, which call for an investigation,” said the legal policy spokesman for the Greens in the state parliament, Toni Schuberl, on Tuesday.
Genditzki was innocently imprisoned for 13 years. The focus should be primarily on the behavior of the public prosecutors involved. It’s not about making accusations, but rather learning from the mistakes.
In 2008, an 87-year-old from Rottach-Egern was discovered dead in her bathtub. In a first trial in 2010, the Munich II Regional Court found that Genditzki, who was the caretaker of the property at the time, had drowned the woman. The murder verdict became final after two appeals and the convicted man was taken into custody.
At the instigation of the defense attorneys, there was a retrial. The Munich I Regional Court then acquitted the defendant in July 2023. According to his lawyer, he was paid around 368,000 euros in non-material compensation for his 13 years in prison, and he also wanted to claim material damages such as loss of earnings. This ended a nightmare for Genditzki, the Greens write in their application.
As early as 2012, doubts about the legal outcome were raised. “There was no evidence for the motives assumed by the public prosecutor; the time of death was not correctly determined. In addition, the public prosecutor’s office resisted the admission of new, exculpatory evidence right up to the end,” complained Schuberl. The Greens also see failures on the way to the retrial. The public prosecutor’s office refused to recognize new reports and witness statements submitted by the defense lawyer as new evidence, according to the application. However, this new evidence ultimately convinced the Munich I Regional Court that the defendant was not in the pensioner’s apartment at the time of the alleged crime and that the pensioner had actually died after falling into the bathtub.
“Without the insistence of his defense lawyer, Mr. Genditzki would still be in prison,” explained Schuberl. It is not clear whether any consequences have been drawn from this blatant misjudgment. “It also remains in the public perception that an error by the judiciary was ruled out for the public prosecutor’s office involved and the judges of the trial court.”