Neue Ermittlungen im Fall Peggy - Polizei setzt auf alte Tonaufnahmen
New investigations in the Peggy case - police rely on old sound recordings.
While judges are revoking the arrest warrant against Manuel S., investigators are still targeting the suspect in the Peggy case. They are counting on a 15-year-old tape recording.
The tape recording is of poor quality. Again and again the voices of the two men, who talk agitatedly to each other, can hardly be heard. But the core of the conversation from July 2002 becomes clear: You can hear Ulvi K. telling his father that he and Manuel S. were there when Peggy Knobloch died a good year before.
In recent weeks, investigators from the Bayreuth Criminal Investigation Department have rung the bell at the doors of several citizens of Lichtenberg to play this recording for them. Mostly they are former neighbours of the Knobloch family or of Manuel S.. "They wanted to know whether I considered it credible what Ulvi K. told his father," one of the interviewees told this newspaper on Friday.
Manuel S. is the man about whom the Bayreuth Regional Court attested on Wednesday of this week that there was "no urgent suspicion of the murder of Peggy." At the same time, the judiciary considers it "very likely" that the 41-year-old helped to remove the girl's body.
The recording that is available to our newspaper lasts 50 minutes. Ulvi K. tells how he and Manuel S. followed the girl, how he suffocated Peggy in the surroundings of the Lichtenberg castle and how Manuel S.'s attempts at resuscitation failed. They then took the body away in his car. For the investigators the admission is obviously a strong indication. Namely that Ulvi K. and Manuel S. are bearing at least one responsibility for Peggy's death. Only: How credible is this statement of Ulvi ?
Jörg Meringer from Hof is Manuel S.'s lawyer. He has managed to have a magistrate set his client free on Christmas Eve and to revoke the arrest warrant for murder issued two weeks earlier. He knows the tape, he knows about the interviews in Lichtenberg. Meringer is convinced that "this action is pure propaganda against my client."
Fact is: Ulvi K. has told many versions about the alleged crime. The one on the tape was made on 24 July 2002, when Ulvis's father was in prison. The son had named him as the one who had allegedly taken Peggy's body away. Wolfgang Geier, who was head of the special commission at the time, made a jovial gesture to the father. He offered him to "talk to his son." What he didn't tell father and son: Geier had long since obtained permission from the responsible judge to record the alleged four-eye conversation.
Defense attorney Meringer considers it legally controversial as to whether the recording may still be used at all in the investigations today. But something else annoys him much more: "The police runs around in Lichtenberg and pretends that this is the only version Ulvi has ever told. Meringer refers to the first reconstruction of the crime on site on July 2, 2002, where Ulvi explained in detail how two of his acquaintances allegedly removed the body. As it turned out, the two of them were not even in Lichtenberg on that day. Or the second on-site appointment. July 30, 2002, six days after the interview in prison. On a video from that time you can see how Ulvi now incriminates his father again.
For Gudrun Rödel, Ulvi K.'s long-time caregiver from Münchberg, it is clear: "Ulvi was a mentally handicapped child who told a different story every day. I can't pick one out and rely on that one specifically." Gudrun Rödel is now thinking about filing a complaint with Interior Minister Herrmann.
Holger Knüppel evaluates the latest inquiries in his city more cautiously. In 2017, the mayor had been one of the signatories of a "call for help" from Lichtenberg citizens who accused the authorities of serious mistakes and sloppiness. They spoke of a "police and justice scandal" and one-sided investigations. Knüppel, to whom the officers also played the tape recently, said on request that he was in favour of "everything the investigators try to solve the case". This included "methods that may seem unconventional at first glance."
It remains to be seen how important the investigators actually think the 15-year-old conversation on the tape is. The responsible public prosecutor's office in Bayreuth would not like to comment on this and neither on the aim of the interviews in Lichtenberg. "We do not comment on ongoing investigations," a spokesman says.
Manuel S., who knew Ulvi K. from childhood and who now lives in the Fichtelgebirge, is listed in the tens of thousands of pages of files on the Peggy case as Spur 1305. He was quickly targeted by the investigators. First as a witness, then as an accused. The Criminal Investigation Department had suspected the then 24-year-old of having placed Peggy under a bridge, gagged her and weighted her down with stones. He is even said to have admitted this. On a Father's Day outing. In 2002, however, the case was dropped. It was believed that the witnesses had drunk too much alcohol, the statements did not seem valid enough. In addition, Ulvi exonerated his former friend.
Expert Hans-Ludwig Kröber, who was recently sued for 350,000 euros in damages by the Supporters' Circle for Ulvi, was told by him in October 2002: "That was a lie about Manuel," according to Frankenpost research. He [ Ulvi ] had only wanted to get his back on him because he [ Manuel ] hadn't paid any more attention to him.
In September last year, Manuel S. made a partial confession, but later revoked that he had taken over the lifeless Peggy from another man in a bus shelter in Lichtenberg and brought her to a forest in Thuringia. According to lawyer Meringer, this partial confession had only come about because his client had felt that he had been under pressure for hours during an interrogation without a lawyer. (*)
Nine-year-old Peggy disappeared on her way home from school in 2001. In July 2016, parts of her skeleton were found near Rodacherbrunn, about 20 kilometers from Lichtenberg. Ulvi K., who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 2004, was acquitted ten years later in a retrial at the Bayreuth Regional Court.
BBM
* The courts found no indication of undue pressure:
The Regional Court evaluated the video recording of the interrogation and came to the conclusion that the officials had not exerted any undue pressure on the accused. There was no evidence that the police had used prohibited interrogation methods. Manuel S. had never been exhausted or overwhelmed. During the interrogation no one had denied Manuel S. the right to call in a defence lawyer. During the entire interrogation, the accused had been aware that he was being investigated on suspicion of murder.
Fall Peggy: Landgericht weist Beschwerde zurück