WASHINGTON -- The German-born Georgetown man charged with the murder of his 91-year-old socialite wife is claiming that his affiliation with the Iraqi Embassy was "independent of" and "to the side of the embassy" and his interactions with the U.S. government have been "external to official channels."
Those claims are, according to Patch, part of Albrecht Muth's hand-written all-caps response to U.S. government assertions that he lacks any legitimate diplomatic affiliation.
Muth, 47, claims that the U.S. government is violating his rights under the Geneva Convention because he isn't allowed to wear his Iraqi military uniform during court proceedings. Muth has claimed he is a brigadier general in the Iraqi army.
The Iraqi Embassy in Washington has denied any connection to Muth.
Muth's wife, Viola Drath, was found dead in her Georgetown home in August. After claiming that she died after a fall, medical examiners determined Drath died of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head. Their marriage has been described as tumultuous, with Drath obtaining several protection orders against her husband.
Following Drath's death, Albrecht Muth's claims of his ties to the Iraqi military and other assertions were examined by investigators and the media, which yielded a bizarre blending of fact and fiction and some outright false claims, according to Yahoo News!:
Muth also variously claimed at one website to have converted to Catholicism with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as his sponsor; to have hosted with his wife a 65th birthday party for then Vice President Dick Cheney; and to have been a former German spy who bugged Madeleine Albright's Georgetown residence.
In his rebuttal to the U.S. attorney's claims, Muth listed a few of his activities in military and diplomatic circles, including posts in the East German army and various positions in the United Nations.
But as Patch points out, the U.S. attorney notes even if Muth were a foreign military officer, it wouldn't matter.
"He is in a civilian court being prosecuted for an exclusively civilian offense, for which the Geneva Conventions would not apply even if he did have some legitimate military affiliation," according to a government memo.
The next hearing on the Muth case is set for Nov. 18, according to Patch.
COMPLETE COVERAGE FROM PATCH: The Curious Case of Albrecht Muth
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