German faces unusual French trial over slain girl

[March 29, 2011]  PARIS (AP) -- A retired German doctor who was kidnapped and left in front of a French courthouse on the orders of a grieving father went on trial in Paris on Tuesday over the killing of a teenage girl 29 years ago.

The unusual trial is the culmination of a decades-long battle between two men, in two countries, now both in their 70s. But it also raises larger questions -- about cross-border justice in the borderless European Union, and whether the father was right to try to take justice into his own hands.

Dieter Krombach lived in freedom for years in Germany after the 1982 death of Kalinka Bamberski. France convicted him in absentia in 1995 of violence leading to unintentional death, but Germany did not extradite him, citing insufficient evidence. Krombach has denied wrongdoing.

Then in 2009, Krombach was kidnapped, beaten, tied up and brought to a French prosecutor's office. The father of the victim, Andre Bamberski, later acknowledged involvement, and was hit with preliminary charges of kidnapping.

Bamberski said he had to act because the statute of limitations was running out and he wanted Krombach to face justice in France.

Bamberski's lawyer, Laurent de Caunes, told reporters at the courthouse Tuesday that the circumstances under which Krombach arrived in France "are irrelevant. The French judicial system now has him under their wing and it has to judge him."

Krombach's lawyers are contesting the legality of the trial in the Paris courtroom, and want to take the case to the European Court of Justice.

Kalinka Bamberski, a 15-year-old with wavy blond hair and a shy smile, was found dead in her bed in July 1982 in Krombach's home, where she and her mother had moved after her parents' separation.

Andre Bamberski believes that Krombach gave his daughter a dangerous injection to make her lose consciousness so he could rape her, leading to her death, his lawyers say.

German justice authorities did not find sufficient evidence to press charges against Krombach at the time.

Bamberski made it his life's work to try to bring Krombach to court, hiring lawyers in France and Germany and rallying supporters through an association, Justice for Kalinka.

Then after years of silence in the case, Krombach appeared, tied up, near the courthouse in the eastern French city of Mulhouse before dawn one morning in 2009.

Krombach was badly beaten during his abduction, suffering head wounds, a broken rib and other injuries, his lawyers have said.

Bamberski was handed preliminary charges for kidnapping and willfully causing injuries. That case is still under investigation by French authorities separately from the case of his daughter's death.

Yves Levano, a lawyer for Krombach, said "it's not normal" that Bamberski is free while "Krombach, who is not guilty in Germany, is in prison here."

Another lawyer for the German doctor, Philippe Ohayon, said, "How is it possible inside a relationship of trust within the EU that from the other side of the Rhine, Mr. Krombach is innocent, and on this side we don't acknowledge German justice and he is accused? This is a situation that is absolutely unacceptable."

Krombach's daughter, Diana Gunther, said, "I hope that tonight this will be the end of this and that my father can come home."

[Associated Press; By JEFFREY SCHAEFFER]

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