The trial of a murder in a psychiatric ward began on Monday at the Munich I Regional Court. A mentally ill man is said to have tortured a fellow patient with a metal rod and strangled him with a sweater in May last year. The 33-year-old made a confession through his lawyer at the start of the trial. It is said that God ordered him to kill him because the woman was a witch.
Because of the risk of endangering himself and others, the man was admitted to the psychiatric clinic last year, only hours later, according to the public prosecutor’s office, he tore the rod of the shower curtain in his bathroom and went into the bathroom of his fellow patient. According to the application, he hit her in the head two dozen times before strangling her with a sweater. After that he set a fire.
Friends and relatives of the dead held a vigil in front of the court, holding up photos of the woman. “The clinic should be a place of healing, a place where mentally ill people find protection,” says a memorial website on the Internet. “That morning, however, two people were clearly denied protection, our unsuspecting daughter and the confused patient who could become her killer unnoticed.”