France: German Man Arrested For Allegedly Keeping Wife Captive For 12 Years

In France, police have captured a German man who allegedly held his wife captive for 12 years.

A French police source told AFP that the woman, who was also German, was found in a bedroom of the flat half-naked and had her head shaved.

According to the police, the bedroom where the woman was found in the Forbach home in Germany, had been sealed up with metal wire.

The 55-year-old man was arrested on accusations of kidnapping as well as other charges.

According to the source, the 53-year-old woman gained access to a phone and called German police, who then notified their French counterparts.

Local prosecutor, Olivier Glady, said she was “not in good” health after a checkup and that there were “about nine cats” in the apartment.

According to him, the metal bars in the flat were not used to jail the wife as had been reported in the French media; rather, they were used to prevent the cats from escaping.

Mr Glady also stated that, contrary to initial accounts, there were no signs of blood or violence when police located the woman.

He claimed the accused had worked in German industry before becoming unemployed.

BFMTV reports that the suspect is currently in custody in Metz, a city in eastern France.

According to interviews conducted by the German daily Bild with neighbours, the man said that his wife had cancer and was “screaming in pain because of her illness.”

Alicia, the woman’s neighbour, told AFP that she never saw the woman leave her residence. She heard screaming, but attributed them to the disease.

She thought he was a “very polite, nice” man.

Another adjacent resident, Erika, said she hasn’t seen the woman in “maybe 10 years” and assumed she “had died or moved out.”

According to French media, investigators reportedly discovered a diary-style notebook in the apartment where the guy allegedly recorded his activities, such as the times he fed his wife.