'Abducted' German on trial in Paris court
Source: Agencies |
March 30, 2011, Wednesday
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A RETIRED German doctor who was kidnapped and left in front of a French courthouse on the orders of a grieving father went on trial in Paris yesterday over the killing of a teenage girl 29 years ago.
The unusual trial is the culmination of a decades-long battle between two men, in two countries, now both in their 70s. But it also raises larger questions - about cross-border justice in the borderless European Union, and whether the father was right to try to take justice into his own hands.
Defense lawyers asked the judge yesterday to suspend the proceedings and seek a European Court of Justice order on whether the trial is valid.
Dieter Krombach lived in freedom for years in Germany after Kalinka Bamberski, a 15-year-old with wavy blond hair and a shy smile, was found dead in her bed in July 1982 in his home in Germany. The girl and her mother had moved in with Krombach after her parents' separation.
The girl's father, Andre Bamberski, believes that Krombach gave his daughter a dangerous injection to make her lose consciousness so he could rape her, leading to her death, Bamberski's lawyers say.
France convicted Krombach in absentia in 1995 of "intentional violence that led to unintentional death" and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. Germany did not extradite him or press charges, saying there was insufficient evidence. Krombach has denied wrongdoing.
In 1997, Krombach was convicted in a German court to a two-year suspended jail and suspended from medical practice after pleading guilty to drugging and raping a 16-year-old girl in his office.
Then in 2009, Krombach was kidnapped from his German town, tied up, and appeared near the courthouse in the eastern French city of Mulhouse before dawn one morning in 2009. Bamberski acknowledged involvement, and was hit with preliminary charges of kidnapping.
Bamberski said he had to act because the statute of limitations was running out and he wanted Krombach to face justice in France.
Bamberski's lawyer, Laurent de Caunes, told reporters that the circumstances under which Krombach arrived in France "are irrelevant. The French judicial system now has him under its wing and it has to judge him."
The trial is expected to last through April 8.
The unusual trial is the culmination of a decades-long battle between two men, in two countries, now both in their 70s. But it also raises larger questions - about cross-border justice in the borderless European Union, and whether the father was right to try to take justice into his own hands.
Defense lawyers asked the judge yesterday to suspend the proceedings and seek a European Court of Justice order on whether the trial is valid.
Dieter Krombach lived in freedom for years in Germany after Kalinka Bamberski, a 15-year-old with wavy blond hair and a shy smile, was found dead in her bed in July 1982 in his home in Germany. The girl and her mother had moved in with Krombach after her parents' separation.
The girl's father, Andre Bamberski, believes that Krombach gave his daughter a dangerous injection to make her lose consciousness so he could rape her, leading to her death, Bamberski's lawyers say.
France convicted Krombach in absentia in 1995 of "intentional violence that led to unintentional death" and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. Germany did not extradite him or press charges, saying there was insufficient evidence. Krombach has denied wrongdoing.
In 1997, Krombach was convicted in a German court to a two-year suspended jail and suspended from medical practice after pleading guilty to drugging and raping a 16-year-old girl in his office.
Then in 2009, Krombach was kidnapped from his German town, tied up, and appeared near the courthouse in the eastern French city of Mulhouse before dawn one morning in 2009. Bamberski acknowledged involvement, and was hit with preliminary charges of kidnapping.
Bamberski said he had to act because the statute of limitations was running out and he wanted Krombach to face justice in France.
Bamberski's lawyer, Laurent de Caunes, told reporters that the circumstances under which Krombach arrived in France "are irrelevant. The French judicial system now has him under its wing and it has to judge him."
The trial is expected to last through April 8.
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