Oh yes, that jail time is worth it: French father facing trial for illegally extraditing his daughter’s killer

Some of us have said things like, “I’d do jail time for that” when we’ve seen injustice.  When it occurs to your family, the need to see justice done is even greater.  For a 76 year-old man in France, Andre Bamberski, it was too much to see his daughter’s convicted killer (convicted in France) living in Germany, with Germany refusing to extradite him, according to a story in the Montreal Gazette. 

Andre Bamberski (on left)

Here’s the backstory on the German who was forcibly, illegally, extradited from France; which is technically kidnapping when it isn’t done through a court.  Retired doctor Deiter Krombach was convicted of the 1982 death of Bamberski’s 15 year-old daughter, Kalinka. The 79 year-old Krombach was accused, and convicted of giving her a dangerous injection so he could rape the young girl.  The injection and rape was “intentional violence that led to unintentional death” or our version of manslaughter.

Krombach was tried in abstentia because he fled to Germany.  And there he sat for a decade because a German court refused to honor the French judgment, saying there was insufficient evidence.  So, more than 20 years later, Bamberski had had enough and hired thugs to kidnap the retired doctor and bring him to France and deposit him, tied up, on the courthouse steps, where he was summarily identified and put in jail.

Bamberski then had to face the music for hiring kidnappers. His trail has started in France and he faces ten years, which, I bet he believes is worth it.  This is probably the least violent form of vigilate justice I can think of.  He deposited a convicted man on the courthouse steps, when another justice system (ostensibly in the EU, and part of the borderless Europe) would not extradite him. This has apparently caused some to question how much cooperation there really is in the EU.

By the way, Krombach had a track record.  His medical license was suspended in Germany after a 1997 conviction for drugging and raping a 16 year old girl in his office.  He pleaded guilty and got a two-year suspended sentence, which is insanely light. Which would have likely pushed Bamberski further.