The mysterious disappearance of 14-year-old Georgine from Berlin is one of the best-known missing persons cases in Germany. For years the girl was searched for - in vain. Now a court judges the suspect: "It was murder."
Berlin (dpa) - She wanted to be a model or an actress. But the dream of Berlin student Georgine (14) ends suddenly. On September 25, 2006, the girl did not arrive at home on the way from school. There is never a sign of life again.
Almost 14 years after the mysterious disappearance of Georgine, the regional court of the capital has now sentenced a 44-year-old father from the neighborhood to life in prison for murder and rape.
Georgine Krüger, called Gina, came out of school that day. At around 1:50 p.m. she got off the M27 bus in the Moabit district of Berlin. About 200 meters separated the student from her family's apartment, where the grandmother was waiting for lunch. At 2:06 p.m. the grandmother called her granddaughter. There was a dial tone, but no one answered the call. After that the cell phone was no longer switched on.
For judge Michael Mattern it is clear that the unemployed neighbor lured the helpful and at the same time naive girl into his basement in a tenement house. There he had passed out and passed away on the 14-year-old. In order to cover up the rape, he strangled the student. He wrapped the body in a thin carpet and "disposed of it in the household waste" at night. He smashed the cell phone and threw the parts into the toilet. Clothes and bag disappeared in a container.
For years all traces led to nothing - the investigators investigated 336 clues. Until a homicide team found out in April 2016 that a man from the neighborhood of the missing student had been sentenced to probation in his basement for sexually assaulting a teenage boy. Investigators found that his cell phone was logged into the same cell as Georgine's cell phone on the day of the disappearance.
As of June 2017, three undercover officers were set on the suspect. They made friends with him and his family - and brought the conversation to Georgine. Until he described in detail the killing of the student to one of the undercover officers. The transcript of the interview comprises around 200 pages. The alleged perpetrator was arrested in December 2018.
The process, which lasted more than seven months, was exceptional as the court relied primarily on this interview. There were no traces of DNA, no fiber, no body. And the accused was silent.
But could the secret record be used as evidence? Judge Mattern: "A very clear yes." One of the undercover agents used a criminalistic ruse - as a tool to fight crime.
The 44-year-old had said to the police that he had been fooled into thinking that he was just making up the whole thing. The undercover investigator had promised him 100,000 euros for the allegedly desired killing of an "annoying girlfriend". He was out for the money.
The German with Turkish roots received the judgment unmoved behind bulletproof glass. During the reasoning he kept closing his eyes, didn't move. When the trial began 4,692 days after Georgine's absence, the accused looked carefree. He even threw a kissing hand to friends on the audience bench. On the following 45 days of the trial, on which 83 witnesses and two experts were interviewed, the triple father with gray mottled hair shook his head barely.
The ruling essentially met the demands of the public prosecutor. The defense lawyers had pleaded for acquittal. You spoke of a "provoked false self-incrimination".
On the day of her disappearance, Georgine wanted to introduce herself to a casting agency. She had an offer that made her shine: an extra role in the ARD evening series "Turkish for Beginners". The court therefore ruled in the judgment that she voluntarily wanted to leave home.
The girl's mother sat across from the accused on Tuesday - as if petrified. Her lawyer Roland Weber later said: "It was another sad day for her."
