Brazil orders the arrest of German consul, charged with husband's death

A Brazilian judge ordered the arrest of a German diplomat on Monday for the murder of his Belgian husband in Rio de Janeiro and asked Interpol to add his name to their wanted list.

German Consul Uwe Herbert Hahn was initially arrested three weeks ago on August 7 after his husband, Walter Biot, 52, died. However, he was freed on Friday after a local court rules that prosecutors missed the initial deadline to press charges against him.

However, Rio de Janeiro’s prosecutor’s office charged him with aggravated murder, which led Judge Gustavo Kalil to order the arrest of Hahn once again.

However, multiple sources have said that by the time the arrest order was placed, Hahn had already flown out of Brazil and had gone back to Germany.

With this in mind, Kalil asked the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to add the German consul’s name to its wanted list and ordered that the German and Belgian embassies be briefed on the case.

Hahn originally claimed that Biot had fallen from their apartment in Ipanema after suffering from an illness. However, police proceeded to arrest the diplomat after a forensics investigation found bloodstains in their apartment and an autopsy revealed several wounds on Biot’s body.

Additionally, authorities found that there had been an attempt to tamper with evidence, claiming that "the apartment was cleaned before the forensics team carried out its examination.”

"The crime was committed with cruel means: severe beating to which the victim was subjected, causing intense and unnecessary suffering," said prosecutors on Monday, adding that Biot had been unable to defend himself due to the ingestion of alcohol and anxiety medication.