Eugen Berwald

Case record: Eugen Berwald

Background

In 1996, a Frankfurt court convicted Russian immigrant Eugen Berwald for the murders of four Russian prostitutes and the husband-and-wife team that pimped them in a high-class brothel.

Eugen Berwald was described as a 25-year-old immigrant from Moldova.

The offence

Six victims were murdered at the brothel on 16 August 1994. The victims were forced to lie face down and then garrotted with electric wire.

The six victims included Gabor Bartos, Ingrid Bartos, and four prostitutes.

Investigation

German detectives retraced Bartos's steps to Budapest, and uncovered nothing when doing so. Suspicion lingered that Bartos imported more women than he had fairly shared, provoking the wrath of big crime syndicates from the former Soviet Union.

The case involved alleged Russian and Ukrainian mafias battling for a piece of the action in Germany's sex market.

The police were unable to exclude a link to organised crime, but prosecutors said Berwald did all the killings, helped by his wife Sofia, who worked at the brothel.

Arrest

Four days after the massacre was uncovered, Eugen Berwald was caught during a routine inspection with checks, a golden watch, plane tickets, and passports belonging to the dead brothel owners.

When Berwald was arrested, he claimed that Russian Mafiosis had killed the couple and their four maids.

Trial

Berwald's defence asserted that his only role in the crime was to let a Russian hit squad into the brothel on the night of the massacre.

The trial took place at Frankfurt's central court. The accused included an ethnic German couple from eastern Europe accused of strangling the owner of the most exclusive brothel in town along with his wife and four prostitutes.

The trial included 70 witnesses.

Clients included business people who charged fees of 350 marks (pounds 160) an hour to company expense accounts.

A defence witness was called who had been caught up in a government sting against plutonium smuggling.

The prosecutors' scenario was that the motive for the crime was greed, and that the robbery went horribly wrong when the owner, Bartos, was accidentally killed in the struggle as Berwald tried to tie him up. In a fit of panic, Berwald was alleged to have murdered everybody else staying in the villa.

Sentencing

Berwald was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Eugen Berwald's wife Sofia was handed a six-year sentence for robbery. The court determined that she did not participate in the killings.

The jury assumed Sofia did not help him with the murders and found out about them the next morning when she read about them in the paper.

Outcome

Berwald received a 25-year prison sentence in 1996. Sofia received a six-year prison sentence for robbery.

Other details

The brothel was described as a stuccoed villa a short taxi ride from Frankfurt's business district. Bartos owned a private jet used to ferry Russian women to Germany, and employed four prostitutes who had been in the country only for a few days.