Cannibal Victim Was Willing To Pay To Be Eaten

The trial of Germany’s self-confessed cannibal Armin Meiwes continued this week in Kassel with the usual mix of bizarre testimony. On Monday, a former sexual partner of the victim, Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, testified that the dead man once offered 5,000 German marks ($2,600) to have his penis bitten off. However, another former lover said later in the week that Brandes had never expressed a death wish or any desire for pain. The conflicting statements are crucial to the prosecution of the 42-year old Meiwes who, although he admitted to killing, carving up and eating Brandes in March 2001, denies committing murder. Meiwes maintains Brandes wanted to consumed and that he requested his penis be cut off and eaten. But the former lover said he and Brandes, who had been a happy couple since 1999, would never had made such a request. Prosecutors acknowledge Brandes appeared to have been an accomplice in his own death and consumption, all of which Meiwes recorded on videotape, but they say the accused is still guilty of murder. If convicted of murder, the cannibal faces life in prison, but only up to five years if he is sentenced to a lesser charge of "killing on demand."