Disturbing the peace of the dead Accused remains silent in the severed head trial

Bonn · Passers-by made a gruesome discovery in Bonn in June: a human head was lying in front of the entrance to the district court. Yesterday, the defendant remained silent at the beginning of his trial.

The accused with his defence lawyer.

The accused with his defence lawyer.

Foto: Peter Kölschbach

The woman is still in shock. On Tuesday, 28 June, she found a severed head in front of the Bonn Regional Court. Today, almost six months later, she cannot get the gruesome image out of her head. On that warm summer day, the 44-year-old was on her way home from seeing the doctor with her son when on Wilhelmstrapße the 16-year-old called out: "Mum, mum, there's a head over there."

"Don’t make jokes about things like that" she replied and wanted to go on. But then she saw that her son had not been joking. "It completely knocked me over".

Mother and son appeared as witnesses on Monday in a spectacular trial before the 11th Grand Criminal Chamber of the Regional Court. It was in front of this court’s building that the head had been deposited.

A 39-year-old homeless man is charged with disturbing the peace of the dead. According to police investigations, he had cut the head off the body of his friend (44), who had died of natural causes, and carried it in a large bag from the Alter Zoll (Old Customs) through the city centre to Wilhelmstraße 21, where he unpacked it and deposited it in front of the courthouse portal.

He then took the shopping bag, went to the other side of the street, sat down on the steps of a building entrance, propped his chin on his hands and looked at the remains. "He seemed to be smiling or talking to himself," another witness (39) reported. She was on her way home from work when she saw "something strange" outside of the courthouse. She thought it was a doll, but it was a real head, "and then I was unable to walk and had to sit down".

In the meantime, other passers-by had alerted the police, who arrived at around 5:50 pm. When the two police commissioners got out of the patrol car, the homeless man stepped out of the building entrance with the empty bag in his hand and approached the officers: "I put the head there," he explained. According to the police report, he was immediately handcuffed. The officers did not find any traces of blood on his clothes or skin, but they did find a small dark spot on his right sandal.

Defendant remains silent

The man was wearing the same open-toed sandals on Monday when he was led into room S 0.11. He was also wearing brown socks, worn shorts, a thin grey T-shirt and a blue baseball cap, which shaded his face as much as his dark beard did. He did not want to say anything about the charges at the beginning of the trial, using his right to remain silent, said his lawyer Anna Carlius.

Not much is known about the man. In police and judicial files he is listed under several aliases and with different birthdays. He was born in Casablanca in 1983, grew up in a corrugated iron hut with his stepmother, soon ran away and from then on was homeless. At the age of twelve he emigrated to Spain, at 14 to France, and one and a half years later he was arrested in Hürth as an illegal immigrant. A short stay in a home followed, after which he ended up on the streets again.

At some point, his path led him to the Alter Zoll in Bonn, and one or two years ago he befriended another homeless man there. The two formed "a partnership of convenience so that no one is alone", said one of the landlords (41) of the beer garden. He had known the 44-year-old homeless man, who died of a serious illness in June, for more than five years. The younger one - now accused - since last summer.

The two of them camped near a shed at night, during the day they sometimes went over to the courtyard garden, the landlord reported. In the days before the crime, he saw the 44-year-old for the last time. On the morning of 28 June, the 39-year-old, wearing a blue down jacket and his cap, was walking alone towards the Hofgarten, the older man was apparently lying in his sleeping bag "as if he were asleep". He was probably already dead by then. After his arrest, the accused led the police to the body. It is still not clear why he cut off the head.

Original text: Ulrike Schödel

Translation: Jean Lennox

Meistgelesen
Neueste Artikel
Zum Thema
Aus dem Ressort