Drastic development in the affair surrounding director Dieter Wedel: The actress Jany Tempel criticizes the Munich judiciary in a live stream. On her website she announced that she would go on hunger strike until the charges against Dieter Wedel for the allegation of rape were decided. More than a year ago, the Munich public prosecutor’s office had brought charges against Wedel. She assumes that the director raped Tempel in the summer of 1996 in a luxury hotel in Munich. He denies the allegations. The Munich I district court must now decide whether to admit the charges.
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“After so many years of daily injustice and permanent mental bodily harm, I am now going on a hunger strike until you finally respond to my and all of our concerns and put an end to this permanent re-traumatization,” says the actress’s website (“Marienhof”). , from which a link leads to a live stream on Youtube. It shows a white-robed, dark-haired woman who could be a temple sitting in a cage. She plays with her cell phone, lies in the cage, she says nothing in the three-hour version on YouTube, every now and then a person walks through the picture. The viewer should recognize that the judiciary makes Tempel feel like he’s locked in a cage, virtually unable to move and live. The whole scenery conveys something theatrical.
Tempel’s attorney Alexander Stevens declined to comment on his client’s actions. However, he had already sharply criticized the long duration of the procedure several times and wrote an official complaint about the delay in May.
Tempel suffers from lengthy proceedings
“With regard to the excessively long duration of the proceedings, it must also be taken into account in particular that the prosecutor’s charge is a case of serious crime, which burdens my client considerably,” Stevens wrote at the time. Tempel, who is a co-plaintiff in the case, is “suffering greatly from the length of the case,” Stevens writes. You were “numerous material and immaterial damage incurred”. He requested “to open the main proceedings and to set dates for the main hearing in a timely manner”.
The public prosecutor had already accused Wedel in March of last year of an allegation from the summer of 1996. The actress Jany Tempel claims that Wedel (“The Great Bellheim”, “The Shadow Man”) raped her at the age of 27 in a Munich hotel when she wanted to audition for a role. According to the prosecutor, the 20-page rape indictment cites more than 20 witnesses, an expert witness and calendar entries as evidence.
Wedel’s lawyers speak of prejudice
Dieter Wedel, in turn, denies the allegations. His lawyers spoke of prejudice and emphasized the likelihood that the charges could not be admitted – although that is very rare in the German judiciary.
The competent chamber is still busy examining the approval, said a spokesman for the Munich I Regional Court after the complaint about the delay in May. The decision should be made shortly. In detention cases, there is an expeditious rule that states that the judiciary must do everything possible to start the main proceedings as quickly as possible. But Wedel is not in custody.
More allegations against Wedel
The allegations against him became known in early 2018. At that time, three actresses accused Wedel in “Zeit-Magazin” of having sexually harassed them in the 90s. The case became the most well-known in the German #MeToo debate that started in 2017. Under the hashtag #MeToo, millions of women in particular posted their experiences of sexual assault on social networks. (with dpa)
