Germany’s star TV weatherman charged with raping woman at knifepoint

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Berlin, May 19 (AFP) Germany’s best-known television weatherman was charged today with aggravated rape and grievous bodily harm for an alleged attack on his girlfriend, prosecutors said.

Joerg Kachelmann, a Swiss presenter beloved throughout the German-speaking world for his rollicking weather reports on public broadcaster ARD, stands accused of sexually assaulting his partner at knife-point.

The alleged victim, 36, had just ended her long-term relationship with the 51-year-old Kachelmann when he turned violent, the state prosecutor’s office in the southwestern city of Mannheim said in a statement.

Authorities say Kachelmann attacked the woman in her apartment in February and held a kitchen knife with an eight-centimetre blade so firmly to her throat that she suffered cuts.

“He also threatened during and after the rape to kill her,” according to the statement.