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Defendants in court
Photo: Nicolas Armer / dpa
The trial of an apparently fatal love affair has begun before the Nuremberg jury court.
The 32-year-old Michael M. is accused of murder, his alleged accomplice Sarah D. inciting murder.
The defendants deny the allegations.
According to the investigators, the complex case began with a body find.
In July 2019, mushroom pickers discovered the lifeless body of a 27-year-old in a forest near Lauf an der Pegnitz.
In the course of the investigation, the police revealed a network of relationships.
The married Sarah D. is said to have cheated on her husband with Michael M. for years.
From autumn 2018, she is said to have cheated on her husband with the 27-year-old who was later killed.
Asked to kill her husband
Michael M. was married himself, but, according to investigators, tried to win Sarah D. back from May 2019.
This obviously gave him hope.
In the summer of 2019, she is said to have asked Michael D. at least 50 times over several weeks to kill her husband and the 27-year-old.
According to the prosecution, the woman was the driving force behind the murder plans.
The alleged motive: her lover and her husband stood in the way of a new relationship with the defendant and she herself was unable to break up with them.
Michael M. is said to have hesitated at first.
But since he was "a slave" to Sarah D., according to the public prosecutor, he agreed to murder.
The prosecution quoted from chats of the two in the process.
Sometimes Sarah D. wrote "both gone" or "all gone, please".
Later: "hope both are gone soon".
Michael M. replied that he wanted to share his life with her.
"If I have to make a pact with the devil for that, then so be it."
27 deep stitches
On the night of July 14, 2019, he is said to have met the 27-year-old near Lauf an der Pegnitz in Middle Franconia under a pretext.
Michael M. is said to have stabbed the man 27 deeply with a knife and hit the head at least 22 times with a heavy object.
He also strangled the man.
The planned further act, the murder of Sarah D's husband, did not take place, however: Michael M. was arrested on the day the body was found.
At the start of the trial on Tuesday, Sarah D. had her defense lawyer reject the allegations as "the public prosecutor's imagination".
Your defense attorney said that all the statements from the chat were true.
But she never asked for a murder and was also not interested in her lover and her husband being killed.
The prosecution only interpreted this in that way.
There is also no motive at all to get rid of the lover, since the latter regards the liaison as ended anyway.
On the sidelines of the trial, Michael M.'s defense attorney said that he saw himself as innocent.
However, his client did not want to comment at first.
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jpz / dpa / AFP