A German ex-doctor and serial rapist who killed his teenage step-daughter by lethal injection 38 years ago has now been freed on medical grounds.
- Dieter Krombach, 84, was whisked by ambulance from his Paris prison today
- He has served nine of his 15-year sentence for the death of Kalinka Bamberski, 14
- Cardiologist was jailed 2011 after being kidnapped by victim’s biological father
Dieter Krombach, 84, was whisked by ambulance from his Paris prison this morning after serving nine of his 15-year sentence for the death of Kalinka Bamberski.
It draws a line under one of the most dramatic cases of recent times, which saw the 14-year-old victim’s biological father kidnap Krombach and drag him to France after Germany refused to hand him over for trial.
After his bound and gagged body was dumped outside a courthouse, Krombach was tried and jailed in 2011.
Kalinka Bamberski, 14, was found dead in her bed during the summer holidays of 1982
Dieter Krombach (pictured)
Krombach (drawn in court 2011)
Last October, a parole committee decreed his sentence should be suspended on medical grounds, which resulted in the doctor taken away by ambulance from a prison near Paris on Friday morning.
A German investigation in 1987 had found there was not enough evidence to charge Krombach of the murder of Kalinka, who was found dead in her bed during the summer holidays of 1982.
But the doctor’s credibility was damaged when in 1997 he was found guilty of drugging and raping a 16-year-old patient, emboldening Kalinka’s biological father, Andre Bamberski, in his campaign to see Krombach arrested.
Frustrated with Germany’s refusal to hand Krombach over, Bamberski hired a kidnap team to snatch the doctor from his home in Scheidegg, Bavaria, bundle him into a blacked-out limousine and bring him to France.
The doctor was left, bound and gagged, near a courthouse in the border town of Mulhouse, and later put on trial.
Kalinka Bamberski (pictured left) is seen with her stepfather Dieter Krombach and an unidentified young woman in this undated family photo (date unknown)
Pictured is a view of the last residence of German physician Dieter Krombach on March 31, 2011 in Scheidegg-Lindenau, Germany
Andre Bamberski
Daniele Gonnin
Andre Bamberski with a photo of his daughter Kalinka Andre Bamberski (pictured 2009)
A German investigation in 1987 had found there was not enough evidence to charge Krombach of the murder of Kalinka. But the doctor’s credibility was damaged when in 1997 he was found guilty of drugging and raping a 16-year-old patient, emboldening Kalinka’s biological father, Andre Bamberski, in his campaign to see Krombach arrested
The doctor, whose lover Daniele Gonnin was Kalinka’s mother, is said to have injected the girl with an overdose of a substance used for tanning.
After Krombach was convicted by a French court in 2011, Kalinka’s father was also put on trial and convicted in 2014 over the kidnapping.
He was handed a suspended one-year jail sentence.
The two men who carried out the kidnapping – Anton Krasniqi of Kosovo and Georgian Kacha Bablovani – were sentenced to a year in prison each.
The drama of Andre Bamberski’s fight for justice has been turned into the 2016 movie, ‘Au Nom de Ma Fille,’ with the English title ‘Kalinka’.
A young Mr Bamberski (date unknown)
Mr Bamberski (pictured in 2012)
Danielle Gonnin, ex-wife of Dieter Krombach and mother of Kalinka Bamberski, pictured here in November 2012, waiting a the courthouse on the opening day of the appeal
After Krombach was convicted by a French court in 2011, Kalinka’s father was also put on trial and convicted in 2014 over the kidnapping. He was handed a suspended one-year jail sentence