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Actress Jany Temple
Photo: Christian Vierfuss / Dr.
Alexander Stevens / dpa
The actress Jany Tempel, who claims to have been raped by Dieter Wedel, was "completely perplexed" after the director's death.
Her lawyer Alexander Stevens told the dpa news agency on Wednesday.
He expressed his condolences to Wedel's relatives, but emphasized that he assumed that the trial against Wedel would have been opened and that it would have been convicted.
The Munich I district court actually wanted to announce on Wednesday whether and when there should be a trial against Wedel.
The public prosecutor had accused Wedel in March of last year of an allegation from 1996.
Tempel states that Wedel raped her in a Munich luxury hotel at the time – an accusation that Wedel has denied.
His client hopes that after Wedel's death, more women will now dare to get off the defensive - "and tell their story," said attorney Stevens.
Tempel even went on a hunger strike for a short time to protest that the court was taking so long with its decision to open proceedings.
The allegations against Wedel became known at the beginning of 2018.
At that time, three actresses - including Tempel - accused him in "Zeit-Magazin" of sexually harassing them in the 1990s.
The case became the most well-known in the German #MeToo debate that started in 2017.
Under the hashtag #MeToo, millions of women in particular posted their experiences of sexual assault on social networks.
lmd/dpa
