Jakarta - the whole nation was in shock when the grim news spread six years ago as a wildfire: The then 31-year-old farmer Sumanto had eaten the corpse of a 81-year-olds!
"They tasted good," says Sumanto today, having served his sentence. "I love all kinds of meat, the main thing it is ready. I will not eat people but, instead, I eat spinach."
In a spectacular trial Sumanto was convicted of robbery and corpse disrupting public order. Rather than get into a mental hospital, he had to serve out his prison term (four years) in an ordinary prison.
First, did the cannibal return to his old home village on the island of Java. But the locals refused. "I do not want him to kill me for his dinner," says one neighbor. "I will never forget the smell of death and the sight of human flesh in soy sauce," another neighbor.
Sumanto currently lives in a religious center, is the hope of a return to his village but does not occur. "I hope I can win the hearts of the villagers again."
