Genditzki, now 63, had worked as a caretaker in a residential complex in Rottach-Egern, where an 87-year-old woman was found dead in her bathtub in 2008. He was accused of hitting the elderly woman in an argument and killing her to cover up the attack. For this he was convicted in 2009 and – after the Federal Court of Justice overturned the first judgment – again in 2012 by the Munich II Regional Court.
However, his new defense attorney Regina Rick later managed to get new experts to deal with the case. These overturned the court’s previous assumptions and showed that the woman’s death could well have been the result of an accident. In August last year, Genditzki was released again. The doubts that the previously completely blameless man had become a murderer from one day to the next had become too great.
He now lives with his family again and works as a driver in a cheese factory. The district court of Munich I completely reopened the case. Even the public prosecutor’s office has now applied for an acquittal, which the court finally pronounced on Friday. It declared that Genditzki’s innocence had been proven.
Seven new expert opinions convinced the court that the woman had died as a result of an accident. The reports were able to draw on knowledge that was not available at the time of the earlier conviction. The conclusion was that there was no evidence of a homicide. Detached from this, Genditzki has an alibi for the probable period of death of the 87-year-old, which was calculated using new methods.
According to the court, the public prosecutor’s office will not take action against the verdict. The presiding judge Elisabeth Ehrl stated that she was sincerely sorry that the accused had been torn from his life on the day of his arrest and had to spend so long innocently in custody.
For the years in prison, Genditzki is now compensated from the state treasury. The spokesman said he had to spend 4,915 days innocently in detention. “This is a tragedy that cannot be put into words.”
The Law on Compensation for Criminal Prosecutions provides for 75 euros per innocent day of imprisonment. That would be almost 369,000 euros for the years in which Genditzki did not see his children grow up and missed the birth of his grandchildren.
In view of the case, the German Lawyers’ Association called for the compensation to be increased to at least 100 euros per day. Although the Federal Ministry of Justice has presented a key issues paper on a new regulation – “we are still waiting for the implementation of these plans”.
