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Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
Aristotle
The Case
On September 28, 2002, 11-year-old Jakob von Metzler, a banker's son, was abducted on the way to his parents' house in Frankfurt. A sum of one million Euro was demanded for his release. Three days after Jakob's disappearance, Magnus Gäfgen, a 32-year-old law student, collected the ransom from the arranged tram stop in Frankfurt during the night. While under observation by the police, he ordered a new Mercedes and booked a holiday abroad. Seventy-six hours after Jakob's disappearance, the police arrested Gäfgen and his 16-year-old girlfriend while simultaneously searching his flat. There they found the missing ransom, but no sign of Jakob.
Upon arrival at the central police station, Gäfgen had (or feigned) a breakdown, which delayed the interview. Later, being confronted with evidence, he changed his story several times from having found the ransom by chance to being involved in the kidnapping as the money courier. Accusations he made naming others were followed up, but none proved viable. Meanwhile, the public had been informed and a 1,000-man search team had been sent to a nearby wood. None of these activities yielded any results. As a last resort, Jakob's mother was brought to the interview room, but Gäfgen showed no reaction. "And we knew," said one police officer, "that Jakob might be lying in a hole in the ground, dying a slow death." At 5:30 the next morning, Wolfgang Daschner, the police president, ordered his men to threaten Gäfgen with violence to force a statement. Under duress, Gäfgen confessed immediately that Jakob was most probably dead and could be found in a lake near Schlüchtern. As a result, the police discovered a child's body, and death from suffocation or drowning was established. In July 2003, the kidnapper was found guilty of abduction and murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The prohibition against duress or coercion is enshrined in German law based on the inviolable dignity of human beings. In February 2003, police president Gaschner was charged with duress, and in December 2004, a law court ruled that Gaschner acted unlawfully. He was found guilty, and although he could have faced five years of imprisonment, no sentence was imposed.