German man falsely imprisoned for 13 years faces €100,000 bill for jail time

It took years of campaigning to get Manfred Genditzki out of jail. Convicted by a Munich court for murder back in 2010, the former caretaker was forced to spend 13 years of his life behind bars as an innocent man.

After more than a decade of fighting for his innocence to be recognised, Genditzki's life sentence was finally dropped last year. In the retrial, Judge Elisabeth Ehrl described an "accumulation of errors" by the courts that convicted the falsely accused man. 

But instead of the compensation that Genditzki is seeking, the 64-year-old has just received an eye-watering €100,000 bill from the Munich public prosecutor's office.

According to the state prosecutors, the former prisoner owes them the money for "bed and board" during his jail sentence, as well as the earnings he received for his prison job. 

Retaliation for compensation claim

According to reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the bill was sent in retaliation for a damages claim that Genditzki has filed against the state of Bavaria. 

Using what's known as an official liability claim, he is seeking €750,000 in compensation for the time he spent behind bars and the consequences of his false imprisonment, which include losing his job.

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After he was released from jail, Genditzki was initially paid €368,700 in compensation for the pain and suffering caused by his 4,916 days of false imprisonment. This equates to the standard rate for victims of the justice system that is set by German law, which amounts to €75 per day in prison. 

But when he and his lawyer filed his claim for additional compensation, they were not expecting the public prosecutor's office to try and offset it with a counterclaim.

According to prosecutors, Genditzki saved €50,442.48 on "accommodation and meals" during his 13 years in custody, and also unlawfully received €2 per hour as a prison labourer - both of which need to be paid back. 

With 13 years in prison, his earnings amount to €48,979.06, which along with the cost of his room and meals comes to around €100,000 in total.

'Common and legal'

Though Genditzki and his lawyer are outraged by the counterclaim, the procedure of offset damages paid to victims of the justice system is apparently a common one in Germany. 

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, judge Simon Pschorr described the practice as "common, customary and legal", indicating that the 64-year-old former convict may well have to foot the bill. 

Before he left office, former Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) had planned to abolish the practice, but his plans fell by the wayside with the collapse of the traffic-light coalition back in November.

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However, the seriousness and length of Genditzki's false sentence - and the media furore it originally attracted - make his case something of an outlier.

Back in 2010, he was accused of drowning an elderly woman, for whom he worked as a caretaker, in her bathtub in Rottach-Egern after an argument. At the time, newspapers branded the case the "bathtub murder".

But after Genditzski's lawyer Regina Rick succeeded in obtaining a retrial in April 2023, it emerged that the lady's time of death had occurred much later than first believed - long after the caretaker had left the property. Experts now believe it was an accident.