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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (222840)	1/28/2002 3:44:19 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Respond to of 769667

The chutzpah of this German defense attorney may be the stuff of legends. Satanic killers 'are not monsters' Two self-styled Satanists on trial for a ritual killing should not be jailed for life as the victim's family wants, prosecutors have argued. Daniel Ruda, 26, and his wife Manuela, 23, are accused of brutally murdering a former colleague last July. The 33-year-old victim was stabbed and beaten with a hammer in their apartment near the German town of Bochum. The couple were arrested in Jena five days after police launched a nationwide search. They have given a detailed confession to the killing, claiming that they acted "on the orders of Satan". Presenting closing arguments, prosecutor Dieter Justinsky said the pair should be given sentences of 14 and 12 years respectively. He rejected calls from the victim's parents for a life sentence, arguing that the pair showed diminished responsibility. The couple are "not the monsters" portrayed in lurid reports in German media, but "deeply disturbed characters," he told the jury in the Bochum court. The couple must be sent, at least initially, to a secure psychiatric facility, Justinsky said. The defendants have appeared in court dressed in black, striking poses for photographers and the packed public gallery. German newspapers have provided exhaustive coverage of the proceedings and of the couple's accounts of occult rituals as well as the visions in which they were told to carry out the killing. The jury is to deliver its verdict on Thursday. I hope the jury finds it possible to parole them to the care of the defense.