In July 2016, 17-year-old Mike Mansholt left Germany for a vacation to Malta, and disappeared. Police officers began investigating shortly thereafter, and Mike’s body was found eight days later. Initially, the father was told his son died from a fall.
But inconsistencies began piling up, and the body was returned to Germany without its organs. Mansholt set out on a two-year journey to uncover the truth about what happened to his son.
DIE WELT carries a long detailed story on the case, featuring an interview with Mike’s Father.
He recounts the last part of the gruelling journey in the quest for truth.
One can find this credible or not. The fact that Mike’s backpack disappeared “is one of the other peculiarities of this case,” admits the public prosecutor, even as he decides that his investigation will been discontinued. Nevertheless, what is clear to the prosecutor: Mike did not die by a stranger’s hand. And the organs were obviously still in their place when the body was found.
This couldn’t sound any stranger. This statement corresponds with the narrative of the Maltese, but it contradicts the forensic doctor on the island who had mentioned he had observed “rodent traces” on the body, nd the fact that the organs were no longer in place when the body was found.
The authorities would owe the father a resolution to this contradiction. But none is provided. They leave him to live without one.
But he has moved on just a bit, exhausted from fighting. He thanks the German public prosecutor. He thanks the Oldenburgers for their sympathy. But now, this must be it.
“In April 2018, nearly two years after Mike’s death, the full Maltese file arrives in his mailbox. Almost 200 pages are now in front of him on his workbench.
Do they include answers?
Exactly one year ago Bernd Mansholt talked about his son for the first time. He doesn’t seem as beaten today as he did then. He has read the entire file since then. He also looked at the Maltese autopsy photos of his son for the first time; he wanted to see them.
After the case was reopened, the Maltese judge comes to the same conclusion again: Mike had fallen off the cliff; there is no other explanation in Malta.
Mansholt accepts it. He wanted to press charges against unknown persons, and against the Maltese forensic doctor for failing to embalm him. In the end, he did not see it through. He knows that for every trial he would need strength from every fiber of his being. Instead, he thinks more and more about the future, his hopes, his way out — out of all this, out into the sea.
Has he resigned himself? No, he has only realized that he cannot get any further. He did all he could.
Mansholt holds no grudges, not anymore. He received all there was to have — the complete file from the island authorities, and the final letter of the German prosecutors. He himself had searched for the truth for a very long time and with all his strength. He still does not know how exactly his son died, or where the organs or the valuables have gone.
But he is more willing to move on: “We will never know what happened.”
Not that it was an easy decision, determining whether to dig further into a seemingly hopeless search or to stop because a point has been reached and the search no longer leads anywhere. Mansholt admits new questions still swirl around his head and he often begs the Lord for answers. But he does not want to contact the investigators in Malta again.
As the WELT AM SONNTAG follows up on the island, hardly anyone wants to further comment on the case or refute the father’s accusations. The Maltese forensic physician, who would seem to have the most explaining to do, remains silent and defers to others.
The policewoman, who repeatedly rebuffed Mansholt’s quest, did not even respond. A first inquiry was left unanswered by the police for two and a half months. Finally, a referral to the Attorney General was made. And furthermore, there was no reply from the Prime Minister’s office.
Shortly before the publication of this story, the Maltese police are reported to have announced: Objectively speaking, there was “no doubt about the fairness, independence, and objectivity of the investigations.”
