{"id":5442,"date":"2011-08-04T11:24:59","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T15:24:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=5442"},"modified":"2011-08-04T11:10:54","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T15:10:54","slug":"german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity","title":{"rendered":"German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his &#8220;human dignity&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A state court in Frankfurt, Germany, awarded damages of more than 3,000 euros (about $4,250) to convicted child murderer Magnus G\u00e4fgen Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>The court made the award on the grounds that G\u00e4fgen\u2019s &#8220;human dignity&#8221; has been impinged upon during an interrogation by police &#8212; who were frantic to find a kidnapped child they thought was still alive, according to the German internet news site &#8220;Deutsche Welle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, G\u00e4fgen, who is serving a life sentence in prison,\u00a0had already murdered the child &#8212; 11-year-old Jakob von Metzler &#8212; by suffocating him to death.<\/p>\n<p>G\u00e4fgen claimed that an investigator had threatened him with &#8220;unimaginable pain&#8221; if he did not tell them the whereabouts of the missing boy. The police questioner told him a specialist in interrogation was on the way to interview him who was trained to was trained to &#8220;inflict more pain on me than I had ever experienced.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>G\u00e4fgen also alleged that an officer threatened to have him raped by a fellow prisoner.<\/p>\n<p>The imprisoned murderer\u00a0told the court\u00a0that he has had psychological problems since his interogation.<\/p>\n<p>On September 27,\u00a02002, G\u00e4fgen kidnapped Jakob, the son of the prominent Metzler banking family in Frankfurt, Germany. He demanded a one-million-euro ransom ($1.4 million) from the boy&#8217;s parents\u00a0&#8212; however,\u00a0he had already suffocated their child to death.<\/p>\n<p>In awarding the damages, presiding judge Christoph Hefter said G\u00e4fgen had been subject to &#8220;serious rights violations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Trade Union of the Police said the\u00a0ruling was &#8220;emotionally difficult to endure.&#8221; It added that police should not be deterred from using intensive techniques of interrogation as a result of the verdict.<\/p>\n<p>Police defended the behavior of the officers involved, saying they believed the clock was ticking if they were to find the boy alive. The officers who questioned G\u00e4fgen were convicted and fined in 2004, although their sentences were suspended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A state court in Frankfurt, Germany, awarded damages of more than 3,000 euros (about $4,250) to convicted child murderer Magnus G\u00e4fgen Thursday morning. The court made the award on the grounds that G\u00e4fgen\u2019s &#8220;human dignity&#8221; has been impinged upon during an interrogation by police &#8212; who were frantic to find a kidnapped child they thought&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[499,2201],"class_list":["post-5442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-germany","tag-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his &quot;human dignity&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his &quot;human dignity&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A state court in Frankfurt, Germany, awarded damages of more than 3,000 euros (about $4,250) to convicted child murderer Magnus G\u00e4fgen Thursday morning. The court made the award on the grounds that G\u00e4fgen\u2019s &#8220;human dignity&#8221; has been impinged upon during an interrogation by police &#8212; who were frantic to find a kidnapped child they thought&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-04T15:24:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-04T15:10:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his \"human dignity\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his \"human dignity\"","og_description":"A state court in Frankfurt, Germany, awarded damages of more than 3,000 euros (about $4,250) to convicted child murderer Magnus G\u00e4fgen Thursday morning. The court made the award on the grounds that G\u00e4fgen\u2019s &#8220;human dignity&#8221; has been impinged upon during an interrogation by police &#8212; who were frantic to find a kidnapped child they thought&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-08-04T15:24:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-04T15:10:54+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity","name":"German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his \"human dignity\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-04T15:24:59+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-04T15:10:54+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/german-court-awards-child-killer-4250-police-impinged-his-human-dignity#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"German court awards child-killer $4,250; police impinged his &#8220;human dignity&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5442"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5444,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions\/5444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}