A 76-year-old Frenchman is standing trial for ordering the 2009 kidnapping of his daughter's killer.
André Bamberski contracted the kidnapping of Dieter Krombach—a German who injected 15-year-old Kalinka Bamberski with a cobalt-iron cocktail, causing her death, in 1982.
If Bamberski is convicted of kidnapping and other charges, he faces up to ten years in prison. Krombach, 79, is currently serving a 15-year sentence for Kalinka's death.
Krombach, who was Kalinka's step-father and a physician, said in court that he gave her the cobalt-iron injection to help bring out her suntan.
Prosecutors believe he injected her to incapacitate her and rape her.
German coroners initially ruled that Kalinka died of natural causes, and demands by her father to reopen the case and to extradite Krombach to France were denied.
Eventually, a case was brought against Krombach, but a German court found that there was insufficient evidence to convict him in 1987.
Following intense lobbying by Bamberski, a French court convicted Krombach in absentia in the death of his step-daughter in 1995. However, the conviction was overturned on the grounds that Krombach was not able to defend himself.
In 1997, Krombach lost his medical license after drugging and raping a 16-year-old patient, and in 2006 he was convicted of practicing medicine without a license.
The statute of limitations for murder in France is 30 years, and by 2009, Bamberski was concerned that he only had three years to bring Krombach to justice.
The father chose to take drastic action, and hired professional kidnappers to forcibly remove Krombach from his home in Bavaria. The men bound and gagged Krombach, and chained him to a fence near a French police station. France refused to return Krombach and extradite Bamberski and the kidnappers.
Krombach stood trial in France and was convicted of manslaughter in 2011. Two appeals have since been rejected.
While some have criticized Bamberski for taking the law into his own hands, his attorney said that he should be commended for bringing a Krombach to justice.
"He acted that way to fulfill his duties as a father," Laurent de Caunes told the Associated Press. "He also acted so that justice could fulfill its duty,"
