Unusual trial Man forges book to "destroy" doctors - prison sentence
The accused allegedly went to great lengths for revenge. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
The defendant began with a very long last word.
Image: dpa
The accused allegedly went to great lengths for revenge. (archive picture)
Image: dpa
The defendant began with a very long last word.
Image: dpa
An unusual trial has come to an end at the Munich district court. Did a man plot revenge out of anger over his mother's autopsy? The court has a clear opinion.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- A man is said to have plotted revenge out of anger over his mother's autopsy.
- According to the court, the 70-year-old wanted to "professionally and privately destroy" the head of Munich's forensic medicine department with an elaborately forged plagiarism.
- The Munich District Court sentenced the defendant to two and a half years in prison for defamation and fraud, among other things.
Judge Dominik Angstwurm spoke of a unique act - and of "almost unprecedented criminal energy". The Munich District Court has handed down its verdict in the trial over an elaborately forged plagiarism. The defendant was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for defamation and fraud, among other things.
The judge considered it proven that the 70-year-old wanted to massively harm the head of Munich's forensic medicine department with a revenge plan - out of dissatisfaction with the autopsy of his dead mother. The man's defense lawyers, who had demanded his acquittal, announced in the courtroom that they would appeal the verdict.
Court: defendant wanted to "professionally and privately destroy" doctor
The case as a whole is probably unprecedented. The court has no doubt that the hatred towards the head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Matthias Graw, was so great that the defendant pulled out all the stops to "destroy him professionally and privately", as it says in the grounds for the verdict.
According to the court, he hired helpers in Pakistan for several thousand euros to create a scientific work and give the impression that it had been published before 1987. Passages and illustrations from the forensic doctor's dissertation were then allegedly incorporated into this book. This was intended to create the impression that the doctor had copied from it for his doctoral thesis published in 1987.
Accusation of plagiarism actually led to investigation proceedings
According to the investigation, the accused - himself the holder of two doctorates - then auctioned off specially printed copies of the volume on an online auction platform and explicitly pointed out the book to plagiarism hunters, who then scrutinized it. The University of Hamburg then initiated an investigation against Graw, which was discontinued shortly afterwards and reported on nationwide.
The act is "by no means a mere defamation offense", says Judge Angstwurm - "especially in times of fake news". The discussion about the plagiarism had led to verdicts in criminal trials in which Graw or employees of his institute had acted as expert witnesses being publicly called into question.
This was another reason why the court was only four months short of the prosecution's demand, which had argued for a prison sentence of two years and ten months in its plea. If the sentence exceeds two years, it cannot be suspended on probation.
Defendant: "There were bunglers at work who dismembered the brain"
The 70-year-old's defense lawyers focus on Graw's role in the Munich criminal justice system in their plea. They consider the Munich judiciary's involvement with Graw and his institute to be so close that they assume their client did not receive a fair trial, that his conviction was a foregone conclusion and that exculpatory aspects were not taken into account.
The court did not give the defendant much credit in its reasons for the verdict, saw "an emotional exceptional situation" of the man after the death of his mother, spoke of an "adjustment disorder" and that he may have "delusional, paranoid ideas".
The extent to which the 70-year-old, whom the public prosecutor suspected at times of having killed his mother, was still preoccupied five years later was revealed in a very detailed last word. The autopsy was unprofessional. "There were bunglers at work who dismembered the brain," he says. He also stated that he assumed that his mother was not dead at all when she was brought to the Institute of Forensic Medicine, but had died there "of cold death". The death certificate had been falsified.
