The Jörg Kachelmann rape trial is the sensational trial of the year in Germany. A famous TV anchor whose program once went viral on YouTube, sex, multiple girl friends delight the rainbow press. Serious press organs like "Der Spiegel" and "Die Zeit" arrived at the sensible conclusion that there is absolutely no evidence to support the accusation (or rather, it appears to be a painstakingly planned false accusation). In spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, feminists, led by feminist Icon Alice Schwarzer continue convinced that Kachelmann is guilty and accuse these press organs of partiality.

Rape trial without evidence

The so-called objective evidence in the rape case against Jörg Kachelmann, allegedly held by Mannheim Public Prosecutor’s Office, doesn’t exist. Several expert witnesses have so far testified in the rape trial. None found any supporting evidence that Jörg Kachelmann raped Simone D. On the contrary, the evidence contradicts the alleged victim’s story. Additionally, the alleged victim, who had accused her ex-boyfriend of raping her at knife point, had to admit to having lied and fabricated some of the evidence herself.

On the other hand, the court painstakingly interviewed various ex-girlfriends of Kachelmann, who had absolutely no knowledge about the alleged incident, but could only smear Joerg Kachelmann’s reputation. Some girl friends earned major amounts for interviews in the rainbow press, but at the same time insisted on privacy during their court hearings.

The prominent Swiss weather anchor Jörg Kachelmann, working for German television, was held in remand for several months before the rape trial held its first hearing, despite his claims of innocence, and despite the absence of any flight risk. Adding to this the non-existent danger of collusion, this jailing of a suspect, based on nothing but unproven allegations, amounts to breach of due process.

Surprisingly, the English speaking press has absolutely no coverage about the Kachelmann rape trial. Therefore, Human-Stupidity undertook the trouble of improving on Google translations to publish the translated text of an excellent article Two bruises but no other findings by German News Magazine "Die Zeit

Did Jörg Kachelmann rape his lover Simone D? The experts’ interpretation of the evidence differs from that of the prosecution. The Mannheim District Court has been hearing Jörg Kachelmann’s case for six months now. That’s how long the 5th criminal division has been searching for evidence to prove that the accused weatherman of the first German television channel raped his occasional mistress, Claudia Simone D. The search has so far been futile. In fact, as the case progresses, incriminating evidence steadily dissipates. On 9 February 2010, the 37-year old Simone D. made a police statement according to which, after a row in her flat, Jörg Kachelmann raped her at knife point and threatened to kill her. The Mannheim Public Prosecutor’s Office had always made a public pretence of having objective evidence indicating the defendant’s culpability. This assertion, however, has been seriously challenged over recent months. German courts deal with rape cases on a daily basis. That the Kachelmann proceedings have turned into a mammoth case without an ending in sight is not unrelated to the fact that investigators spent weeks interrogating the victim/witness without questioning her statements. The Kachelmann case proves beyond doubt that, in this day and age, no potential victim of a sexually related crime need fear the authorities. Rape victims humiliated and bullied by the police and judiciary were merely a post war phenomenon, now long gone, though still preferentially exemplified by women’s rights activists. Today, a woman who reports a rape in Germany can expect a maximum of discretion, understanding, solidarity and attention. The extent of this is demonstrated fully on Simone D. The criminal investigation department accepted the rape story of Kachelmann’s girlfriend without any verification of her statement. In a remark made immediately after the report on 10 February 2010, the female interrogating officer from Schwetzingen wrote: “We feel the woman is making a credible impression”. When questioned by the court six months later on the basis of this evaluation, the police officer was unable to respond. Credulity and naivety – unexpected qualities in a judge – were also displayed later, in the witness statement before the Mannheim District Court by the custodial judge, who ordered Kachelmann –pleading innocence – to be held in remand on 10 March 2010. The judge stated, as reason for the arrest warrant, that Kachelmann’s version, according to which he first had consensual sexual intercourse with Simone D. but then left after a jealous outburst from her, simply did “not appear plausible” to him. In addition, he held it on assumption that “someone who accuses another of committing a criminal offence would be telling the truth”.

Accusers are always believed. Especially rape accusers. In spite of evidence that false rape accusations have been a weapon of choice since biblical times and nowadays are endemic. Credible experts from police and academia estimate that 20% – 60% of rape accusations are false. Of course, feminist writers vehemently disagree. (Additionally, most rape accusations are not about forcible rape in the traditional meaning of the word.

The Mannheim Public Prosecutor’s Office has also been supportive of the victim/witness from the beginning, although the woman, whose hopes had been dashed by Kachelmann, would have very understandable motives for a false accusation. The Public Prosecutors continued to support Simone D. even when, in the course of the investigation, she admitted to not only having lied in parts of her statement, but also to fabricating some of the incriminating evidence herself (see ZEIT file “Schuldig auf Verdacht” from 24 June 2010). When her manipulations were discovered, at the end of April 2010, Kachelmann had already spent a month in custody. In spite of this the Public Prosecutor’s Office dismissed Simone D’s attempt to mislead the court as a “minor issue”.

Source: Two bruises but no other findings | Die Zeit

The Hofstra rape case is an example where 4 men were jailed and on the verge of getting 20 year verdicts based on the contradictory accusation of one lone girls. Only video evidence cleared the falsely accused.

This clear bias in favor of accusers can be found world wide. The Obama administration ordered US colleges to convict rape suspects in internal administrative proceedings by preponderance of evidence, a far cry from "beyond reasonable doubt". Add to this panel members totally biased in favor of the accuser, and a conviction is virtually assured, no matter how flimsy or patently wrong the accusation.

Even the forensic expert from Baden-Wuerttemberg’s State Office for Criminal Investigation (LKA) interprets his findings in favor of the alleged victim: when reporting the crime, the woman had an abrasion on her larynx, supposedly caused by the continuous pressure of the knife blade during the rape. However Gerhard Bäßler, graduate biologist of the LKA, could not find any usable DNA traces on the knife when examining the alleged weapon. There was no tissue from Simone D. detected on the blade, nor any from the defendant anywhere on the knife. The examination of the seam of the dress, which Kachelmann is supposed to have pushed up by force, also yielded no results. Although the complete absence of such evidence indicates a strong likelihood that the victim’s statement is false, the biologist states in his report of 26 April 2010: “The findings correspond to the crime as reported by the injured party” and are “in accordance with the statement of the injured party”, and he even concludes that “the suspect J.K.” cannot “be ruled out as having caused the evidence”. Bäßler back-pedaled in December 2010, when faced with critical questioning by the court and several experts in forensic medicine: the biologist admitted that the findings did not by any means prove that the defendant had touched the knife, and stated: “There is no proof of any evidence caused by Mr. Kachelmann”.

Expert witness proven to have twisted his declaration in favor of the accuser.

The forensic expert and DNA specialist appointed by the defense, Bernd Brinkmann from Muenster, had already arrived at the same results in May 2010. It was also he who, right from the beginning, considered Simone D’s alleged injuries sustained during the rape – the already mentioned abrasion on her neck, some abrasions on her stomach and arms, and two large bruises on the inside of her thighs – to be self inflicted. The expert report made in spring 2010 thus testifies against the charge brought by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. When Bernd Brinkmann finally appeared as an expert witness at the invitation of the defense for the start of the proceedings in Mannheim, he was treated more like an adversary. Amongst the numerous experts, he was the only one submitted to a thorough search in public by security personnel, as if suspected of carrying weapons or explosives in his trouser pockets. When joining other experts on the bench, the 71-year old professor was summarily told by the young state attorney Lars-Torben Oltrogge to clear out of his place. After enquiring where, if not there, he ought to sit, Oltrogge rudely told him that he didn’t care. The audience bore witness as the renowned physician wandered through the courtroom looking for a vacant seat. Finally the Public Prosecutor’s Office moved to exclude the disagreeable expert from the proceedings on grounds of bias – and was successful. This stemmed from the fact that Bernd Brinkmann considered that a bruise on her thigh, that Simone D. had photographed a whole year before the alleged rape, was the result of a trial blow to test “her ability to develop large bruises” well ahead of time. The criminal investigation department had recovered two deleted digital photos on the woman’s computer in July 2010. Both show an impressive, brownish-green bruise on the inside of her left thigh, similar in size and location to the bruises documented in the complaint lodged against Kachelmann. However, the photos were made in February 2009. During the police interrogation Simone D. claimed that she didn’t know the origin of the bruise, but added that she would sometimes photograph bruises for study purposes: another reason why Brinkmann didn’t believe this to be coincidental, but rather “very likely” that Simone D. had experimented on herself before filing the police report. The court agreed to the exclusion of Brinkmann, arguing that the expert had omitted to weigh his theory “against alternative explanatory scenarios”.

And now the court shows clear bias. The prosecution is biased and ignores lies and fabricated evidence, the police showed bias and credulousness, expert witnesses initially twisted their interpretations.

Finally, in February 2011, three forensic experts submitted their reports on Simone D’s injuries to the Mannheim District Court. Reiner Mattern from Heidelberg who, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, had examined the woman on the day of the complaint, opened his speech by saying that he could neither prove that Simone D’s injuries were caused by the defendant, nor that they were self inflicted. He had been surprised, he said, at the absence of typical rape sustained injuries (defense injuries, marks on her upper arms from being held down). The lack of DNA on the knife also astonished him, as did the fact that Simone D. couldn’t explain how she got the impressive bruises on her thighs. Despite this, he still provided an unsolicited possible scenario, whereby the bruises could have been caused by the defendant’s knees. The court advised him that this contradicts the victim/witness’ description as protocolled by the police. Mattern had seen alleged rape injuries “some 20 to 30 times” during his career where it was unclear whether the injuries were real or self inflicted. He avoided a direct response to the question of how many sex offence related/self inflicted injuries he had recognized, merely saying “I normally avoid taking a stand”. He also acknowledged the low violent crime rate in Heidelberg, conceding that “some of my colleagues are bound to have more in-depth knowledge”. This could refer to the two experts nominated by the defense: the Directors of the Cologne and Hamburg forensic institutes. When Markus Rothschild from Cologne submitted his report he observed, turning to the judges, that the rape description by the victim/witness appeared to him “not plausible” on account of the injuries, and that he considers it “practically out of the question” that the abrasions, which appear to have been made with a calm hand, originated during the highly dynamic course of events described. In addition, should the knife blade really have been held against the woman’s neck, her DNA “would certainly have been detected on it”. Rothschild emphasized that scaled off flakes of skin stick to items like glue, which is why geneticists can even get DNA from a fingerprint. He also claimed that Simone D’s statement, according to which she did not notice getting the large bruises on her thighs during the rape, is “absurd”. The bruises were made with “enormous force”, a process which must have been very painful. Klaus Püschel, forensic expert from Hamburg, was even more explicit. A renowned expert on self inflicted injuries, he has written a textbook on the subject and has – just like his colleague Bernd Brinkmann – revealed the false allegations of numerous alleged victims. Püschel agreed with Rothschild: neither the injury on her neck nor the abrasions on her skin could have been caused in the manner described; a conclusion drawn from simple forensic textbook knowledge. Püschel also ruled out knees as causing the bruises; these must rather have been made using fists or some other round object. The injuries, taken as a whole, were much more likely to be self inflicted than to have been caused by a third party. The overall picture that emerged was entirely untypical for a sudden attack scenario: “There is no evidence that the witness’ statement is correct”, “but many indications that this is a case of manipulation”. These words concluded the expert statement.

It is quite clear that a rape defendant with less fame and less financial means would be nearly chanceless, nor matter how hare brained the rape accusations.

There is hardly any scientist, however, who could be said to be more concerned about the care and support of crime victims than Professor Püschel. His institute in Hamburg operates a large emergency service for crime victims; abused, beaten and raped persons can have their injuries documented by specialists in a supportive and non-bureaucratic way to obtain evidence for use in court. The institute deals with between 1,000 and 1,500 injured parties each year from all of northern Germany, among them up to150 women who claim to have been raped. Unfortunately, Püschel told the court in Mannheim, there has been a sharp increase over recent years in so-called fake cases, where persons present self inflicted injuries and claim to be victims of crime. Forensic medicine has in the past assumed about five to ten percent of rape allegations to be false; meanwhile some institutes more recently estimate that every second rape allegation is invented. 132 rape victims presented themselves in Püschel’s emergency service in 2009: in 27 percent of the cases the doctors believed the injuries to have been faked, in 33 percent to be genuine. For the remaining 40 percent the Hamburg forensic experts could not determine who had caused the injuries, whether the accused or the victim.

Source: Two bruises but no other findings | Die Zeit

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