A German mother was sentenced to more than four years in jail on Monday for killing two of her babies, whose bodies she stashed under pizzas in the family freezer.
She was not tried in connection with a third baby, also found in the freezer because the statute of limitations on the case had expired.
The 44-year-old housewife, Monika Halbe, who was sentenced to fours year and three months for manslaughter at the end of a five-day trial, had admitted to hiding the bodies of three baby girls in the family freezer, but had denied killing them.
The defendant’s 18-year-old son discovered the girls’ tiny corpses in plastic bags in May when looking for a pizza in the basement freezer.
Halbe’s lawyer Andreas Bartholome called for his client to be acquitted or given a suspended jail sentence, noting that the accused, who already had three children, had been deeply ambivalent about having more babies, was terrified of doctors and had suffered from alcoholism.
Prosecutors charged her with two counts of manslaughter for killing one daughter in 1988 and another between 2003 and last year. The one born in 1988, delivered in the family bathroom, was suffocated by being held close for several minutes.
The second also died of a lack of oxygen.
The third girl is believed to have been killed in 1986 or 1987, also shortly after birth.
“She was not afraid of the babies being found,” Bartholome said. “Above all, she wanted to have the babies near her.”
Halbe’s husband and the family’s three grown children said they had been unaware of the pregnancies.
The presiding judge, Wolfgang Muenker, said there was “an incomprehensible lack of communication” between the accused and her husband.
Halbe, born the youngest of eight children, was trained as a dental assistant but gave up work after being bullied, the judge said.
Her first sexual relations were “not consensual,” the judge also said.
The accused suffered from “an irrational fear of doctors and especially of gynecological examinations,” he said.
Halbe is undergoing psychiatric treatment at her own request in a guarded facility.
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
Czech intelligence chief Michal Koudelka has spent decades uncovering Russian spy networks, sabotage attempts and disinformation campaigns against Europe. Speaking in an interview from a high-security compound on the outskirts of Prague, he is now warning allies that pushing Kyiv to accept significant concessions to end the war in Ukraine would only embolden the Kremlin. “Russia would spend perhaps the next 10 to 15 years recovering from its huge human and economic losses and preparing for the next target, which is central and eastern Europe,” said Koudelka, a major general who heads the country’s Security Information Service. “If Ukraine loses, or is forced
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
RSS