The body of a mother of nine was found in a flat in Gelsenkirchen. Her husband confesses to the murder. What he says is shocking.
The paramedics were confronted with a horrific scene: almost six months ago, the body of a mother of nine was found in a flat in Gelsenkirchen. Her skull and jaw had been shattered and her incisors had been broken out. Everything was covered in blood. Her husband has been on trial for murder since Tuesday – and blames her entirely.
‘She showed me no respect and didn’t care about me,’ said the 53-year-old Iraqi at the start of the trial at Essen’s jury court. She also contradicted him. Once she even said these words to him: ‘I can dress the way I want. I can say what I want.’ And she did not fulfil his sexual wishes either. ‘That was the greatest disrespect.’
The accused came to Germany in the summer of 2015. His wife and seven of their children followed two years later. ‘That’s when the problems started,’ says the 53-year-old. ‘She was no longer the woman I knew from Iraq.’ There were only arguments. ‘There is an exaggerated sense of freedom in Germany.’
The family lived on Bismarckstraße in Gelsenkirchen. The accused did not work. According to his own statements, he suffers from Parkinson’s disease. His wife only ever complained and reproached him for not having enough money. ‘She threw away food every day and then told me that we didn’t have enough to eat.’
It was 3 December last year when the situation finally escalated completely. The four children, who were still living in the same household at the time, had already left the flat to attend school. The 46-year-old woman then apparently lay down again.
The public prosecutor’s office assumes that she was asleep when her husband grabbed an iron bar with which he actually wanted to build a TV table. He repeatedly hit her with it – directly on the head. According to the indictment, he then took a knife and stabbed her six times – in the stomach and neck. The 46-year-old had no chance. Doctors later recorded massive blood loss and craniocerebral trauma as the cause of death.
The accused himself got into his car after the bloody deed and drove to the police to turn himself in. ‘I killed my wife.’ He is said to have said something like this at the time. The 53-year-old will not deny the offence itself in court. But that his wife was asleep.
He himself claims to have gone to a supermarket early in the morning to buy eggs, bread and cheese. However, this was not enough for his wife because there was a Yazidi holiday coming up that needed to be celebrated. She also wanted money for the hairdresser and a trip. ‘She acted as if we were billionaires,’ the defendant told the judges. Yet the family lived from money from the unemployment benefit office.
‘She suddenly started behaving like a madwoman and also insulted our religion,’ said the 53-year-old. All attempts to calm her down failed. He even hugged his wife and reassured her that they wouldn’t starve to death. ‘But then she attacked me. She was like a beast.’
In this situation, he simply couldn’t control his emotions and his whole body was shaking. ‘She hurt me deeply in my masculinity,’ he told the judges. ‘I then hit her with the iron and then did this with the knife – in self-defence.’ From his point of view, there was no other option because of his illness. ‘She was stronger than me.’
However, he did not want to kill his wife. ‘I deeply regret what happened,’ he said. His children are even said to have forgiven him in the meantime. This was learnt on the fringe of the trial.
If convicted of murder, the 53-year-old faces life imprisonment. The judgement is expected to be handed down at the end of July.