Public prosecutor of Sarreguemines, Olivier Glady (C), addresses media at the courthouse of Sarreguemines, eastern France, on August 7, 2023, after French police said they had arrested a 55-year-old German national who is accused of holding his 53-year-old wife captive in a flat since 2011. A police source said the woman, also German, 53-year-old who had managed to call police in Germany, who in turn alerted their French colleagues, was naked with her head shaved when they found her in a bedroom in the apartment, and had multiple injuries, including broken bones. (Photo by Jean-Christophe Verhaegen / AFP)
Forbach, France — A German man, arrested in France after his wife said he had been holding her captive for 12 years, was released on Tuesday without charges, the lead prosecutor in the case said.
Police arrested the 55-year-old on Monday after his wife was found naked in a poor state following what she said was captivity at the couple’s home since 2011.
But her husband denied this, saying that his wife had cancer and that he was caring for her.
Prosecutor Olivier Glady said there was “no evidence” that would justify a continued investigation into the man.
“The kidnap scenario never happened,” he said.
A few hours later, the man left the police station “between 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) and 9:00 pm”, Glady told AFP.
According to AFP correspondents at the scene, he was taken home in an unmarked police vehicle, seated in the back, with the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.
Forensic medicine examination of the man’s wife, a 53-year-old Spanish-German national, had also failed to produce any signs of rape or injuries, the prosecutor said.
Doubts about the wife’s narrative had emerged already on Monday, when doctors found no broken bones or bruises as they examined her.
Her accounts to investigators meanwhile contained “inconsistencies”, police said.
Glady had predicted on Monday that “the cursor is probably moving away from a scenario of horror, towards unsatisfactory conditions of the care of a sick person”.