German child killer Magnus Gaefgen awarded damages - BBC NewsBBC News
Image caption, Jakob von Metzler suffocated to death in Gaefgen's flat in 2002
ByStephen EvansBBC News, Berlin
A German court has awarded more than 3,000 euros ($4,265) in damages to a child murderer.<br>Police threatened Magnus Gaefgen with "unimaginable pain" if he did not reveal his victim's whereabouts.<br>The court in the state of Hesse decided Gaefgen's "human dignity" was violated during questioning on the disappearance of a banker's 11-year-old son.<br>When Gaefgen was held in 2002, police thought the boy was still alive because his father had paid a 1m-euro ransom.<br>But the abductor was refusing to disclose the boy's whereabouts. The two questioning officers threatened the arrested man with "unimaginable pain" to try to persuade him to disclose more.<br>He was later convicted of murdering the boy whom he had bound and gagged to the point of suffocation.<br>But the killer filed a claim saying that he too had been subjected to inhumane treatment in the interrogation.<br>A spokesman for the police union said that the ruling was "emotionally very difficult to endure".<br>He said that torture was not endorsed but "family members, as well as all citizens, have a right to expect that the police will try to question an alleged murderer to such an extent that the potential victim can at least be found quickly, if not rescued".
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