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Gerhard Hoppmann, Chief Inspector of the Krefeld Criminal Investigation Department, in front of a phantom image (archive photo)
Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa
Almost 24 years after a murder near Aachen, the investigators are convinced that a 50-year-old man committed the crime out of greed.
The man has been in custody for a week.
He is said to have killed the victim in December 1996 - for a sum of 5,000 marks.
"I arrested him myself," said the head of the police murder commission in Krefeld, Gerhard Hoppmann, on Wednesday.
The suspect comes from the Aachen area and is silent on the allegations.
The accused is "urgently suspected" of having killed a man "cruelly and out of greed," said a press release from the public prosecutor's office.
A man who has since died is said to have helped the alleged perpetrator.
A handful of those who knew about the bloody act reported to the investigators a month ago after a new appeal.
They were silent for almost 24 years because they either had a personal relationship with the suspects or simply did not believe their stories.
The second man involved in the crime had a fatal motorcycle accident in Turkey in 1997.
It was only earlier this week that it became known that investigators had identified and arrested a suspect.
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kha / dpa