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Hans von Möhlmann (2015): "He can't finish the fight"
Photo: Hauke-Christian Dittrich/ dpa
The case is 41 years old and is still occupying the judiciary: In a good six weeks, the murder trial against a man who is said to have raped and killed the then 17-year-old Frederike in 1981 will begin before the district court in Verden, Lower Saxony.
The girl's father had campaigned for this procedure for years - and now he does not experience it himself.
Hans von Möhlmann has died, as reported, among other things, by the »Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung«.
As a result, he succumbed to diabetes at the age of 79.
"Of course that's very bitter," quotes the newspaper from Möhlmann's lawyer, Wolfram Schädler.
"He can't finish the fight."
The Frederike case attracted national attention as early as the 1980s, but it was only decades later that it made judicial history: the now 63-year-old defendant was the main suspect immediately after the crime, was first convicted and then legally acquitted.
According to the previous legal situation, a conviction in the same case was therefore ruled out - even after a report drawn up in 2012 had stated that the man acquitted in 1983 could have caused a trace of semen on the panties of the deceased.
The upcoming main hearing is only possible due to a controversial change in the law, for which Hans von Möhlmann had fought for a long time.
The Code of Criminal Procedure now contains a further reason for retrial: This allows a new trial against an accused who has already been acquitted by final and absolute judgement, if new evidence constitutes "urgent reasons" for a conviction for murder or other serious crimes.
The presumption of innocence still applies to the main suspect in the Frederike case – until he has been convicted.
The man's defense attorneys had announced a constitutional complaint months ago in the event of a new main hearing.
They consider the change in the law, which made it possible for their client to be charged again, to be unconstitutional.
mxw
