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Detlev Guenzel, 56, was jailed after allegedly strangling and dismembering 59-year-old Polish-born Wojciech Stempniewicz in 2013.

Guenzel was sentenced to eight and a half years by a court in Leipzig after he was found guilty of murder and disturbing a corpse.

But now the German constitutional court has cancelled the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Gunther Sander, the chairman of the Constitutional Court Senate, said: "The cards have been completely reshuffled."

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The reason for the retrial included the fact that the defence claim that the victim committed suicide was never properly examined.

Nor had the rope which he was hung from been examined properly either.

He added that it was also impossible to predict what the result of the new trial would be.

During the original case, prosecutors could not confirm that he had actually eaten the victim, but some body parts were never found.

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When police arrived at the property, he reportedly showed them where the pieces were buried, but officers say the victim's penis was never found.

Guenzel went on trial in August last year accused of cutting the body into small pieces and burying them in his garden, making a macabre home video in the process.

The pair had met in October 2013 on a website for slaughter and cannibalism fantasies which described itself as the "Number 1 site for exotic meat" with more than 3,000 registered members, according to local media.

Guenzel, who had served in the police for 30 years, retracted a confession he initially made to detectives soon after Stempniewicz's killing in which he said that he had cut his throat.

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Investigators have been unable to determine the cause of death definitively because of the poor condition of the corpse.

They have, however, been able to ascertain that the pair had extensive contact online and by telephone before finally arranging their date on 4 November 2013.

The video Guenzel made was played during the trial, at one point showing him covered in blood while mutilating the corpse. He can be heard murmuring: "I never thought I would sink so low."

The defendant is reported to have broken down when the footage was shown, telling presiding judge Birgit Wiegand that he had made a mistake but was not a murderer.