http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3443293.stm
A German court has convicted self-confessed cannibal Armin Meiwes of manslaughter and sentenced him to eight years and six months in prison.
Meiwes, 42, admitted killing and eating Bernd Juergen Brandes after sex and hours of sado-masochism but insisted his victim had volunteered.
It has been Germany's most sensational trial for decades.
The verdict falls well short of the prosecution's demand for a 15-year sentence for sexual murder.
They were two deeply psychologically disturbed people who both wanted something from the other
Judge Volker Muetze
The defence had sought a verdict of illegal euthanasia, carrying a far shorter sentence of six months to five years, on the grounds that it had been a "killing on request".
But while rejecting the defence's argument, the court also ruled that Meiwes had had no "base motives" for the crime and settled on a manslaughter verdict, as Judge Volker Muetze told the packed courtroom.
Meiwes had not, he said, committed a murder in the legal sense "but a behaviour which is condemned in our society - namely the killing and butchering of a human being".
"Seen legally, this is manslaughter, killing a person without being a murderer," he said.
The judge described the killer and his victim as "two deeply psychologically disturbed people who both wanted something from the other".
The case could make legal history in a country which has no laws against cannibalism.
Video killing
Dressed in a dark suit and tie, Meiwes sat impassively as the verdict was read out in court. The BBC's Ray Furlong says that for Meiwes, the verdict was a good result.
Meiwes had a "slaughtering room" in his huge house
The well-spoken computer technician killed and ate Brandes three years ago, after placing an advert on the internet.
It was, he told the court in Kassel, the realisation of a dream he had nurtured ever since having schoolboy fantasies about consuming his classmates.
Despite this, psychologists said he was mentally fit to stand trial.
His victim, also in his 40s, bought a one-way ticket to the defendant's home village and spent an evening with him, before volunteering to be killed.
The court also saw a grisly home video of Brandes being stabbed to death.
Memoirs
The defence had argued that the crime was a form of mercy killing but the prosecution said this did not apply because the victim had been mentally disturbed.
Brandes "asked to be stabbed to death," according to Meiwes
A psychiatrist who testified at the trial said Meiwes had a "schizoid personality" but was not mentally ill.
Investigators found he had been in internet contact with more than 200 people who shared his fantasies.
Meiwes, who may be eligible for early release for good behaviour, has said he plans to write his memoirs in order to persuade other people with similar fantasies to seek help in time.
The internet cannibal, who ate the flesh of Brandes over a period of several months, defrosting cuts from his freezer, may now be the most notorious cannibal in modern German history.
However, his record pales in comparison with the crimes of his countryman Fritz Haarmann, the "Monster of Hanover".
Haarmann, a butcher, murdered at least 24 boys and youths between 1918 and 1924 and sold their flesh to customers seeking cheap meat.
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