Overview

• The Bundesgerichtshof’s 5th Criminal Senate dismissed the appeal, confirming the 11-year-9-month sentence is legally binding
• In September, the Landgericht Hamburg found the brothel owner guilty of killing his 28-year-old ex-lover after she threatened to expose their affair
• The court determined that he affixed a heavy metal plate to her body and submerged it in a canal in Wilhelmsburg to conceal the crime
• The case advanced only after a 2023 discovery: an angler retrieved human bones from the canal and police divers later recovered most of the skeleton
• Although investigators suspected him soon after the woman’s 2013 disappearance, the absence of a body prevented charges until forensic evidence emerged