A 53-year-old woman in France accuses her husband of keeping her confined at home in Forbach, on the border with Germany, for 12 years and of also torturing her.
The woman was released during a police blitz, taken at dawn in the apartment of the couple - both German - in avenue Saint-Rémy.
It seems that last night the victim managed to gain access to a telephone, alerting relief efforts in Germany through an association that protects victims of violence. She said she had been kept locked up in the house, against her will, for at least 12 years. The association immediately contacted the Wiesbaden police who in turn notified their French colleagues in Forbach. The man - a 55-year-old unemployed man who formerly worked for an industrial plant in Germany - was immediately arrested and detained in Metz.
The woman was inside a closed room with bars, naked, with a shaved head, undernourished and with fractures in her legs and fingers and signs of beatings, specified a source close to the investigation, she was hospitalized.
The husband reportedly told everyone that his wife was suffering from cancer, and when the neighbors heard the screams they thought of the pain caused by the disease.
French justice has opened an investigation into kidnapping, aggravated rape, acts of torture and barbarism.
(Unioneonline/ss)