A German court on Monday sentenced a 67-year-old man to life imprisonment for the murder of his ex-girlfriend more than four decades ago.
The defendant confessed to killing the 19-year-old trainee nurse in her room on July 30, 1984.
"I deeply regret it," he said in his closing statement, describing the killing as unplanned. The court convicted him of premeditated murder.
Presiding judge Karsten Krebs said the victim, Maria Köhler, had been strangled with her own mesh scarf for four to five minutes and had "no chance to defend herself."
Prosecutors believe the killing was driven by anger and jealousy, after Köhler ended the relationship and began seeing a US soldier stationed in the central German state of Hesse. Chief Public Prosecutor Jürgen Bundschuh said the defendant acted "with the intent to kill."
The defence had sought an acquittal, arguing the case amounted to manslaughter - an offence subject to a statute of limitations in Germany. Defence lawyer Diane Waterstradt said her client had gone to see the young woman to talk to her and collect his belongings before an argument broke out.
"Then my client spontaneously pulled at the scarf that Ms Köhler was wearing," she said.
After the crime, the stateless suspect fled to Turkey and remained untraceable for decades. Investigators said he returned to Germany in mid-1998 under a different name with a German wife he had married in Turkey. He returned to Turkey 16 years later.
The 67-year-old previously lost his Turkish citizenship because he refused to perform military service in Turkey.
At the end of 2024, cold-case investigators reopened the case and eventually tracked the suspect down in Turkey. He was extradited to Germany last September and has been in pre-trial detention ever since.
