A Polish court on Thursday overturned the 25-year prison sentence of an author who was convicted of directing a murder eerily similar to a killing in a book he wrote.
The court ordered a retrial for Krystian Bala, 36, which could open within the next three months, said Witold Franckiewicz, a spokesman for the appeals court in Wroclaw. He said Bala will stay in custody on charges that he planned and directed the murder.
Franckiewicz said a three-judge appeals panel found that there is "undoubted connection between the actions of the defendant and the death of the victim" _ Dariusz Janiszewski, whom Bala had suspected of having an affair with his estranged wife.
However, the judges ruled that a new sentence should be pronounced after more evidence is gathered _ for example, on whether or not Janiszewski was dropped alive into the Odra River, Franckiewicz said.
Fishermen dragged the body of Janiszewski, a businessman, from the river in western Poland in December 2000. His hands were bound behind his back and the other end of the rope was tied around his neck.
Police were unable to find clues until a tip five years later led them to Bala's novel "Amok", written in 2003 and featuring a narrator who fatally stabs a woman after binding her hands behind her back and running the rope to a noose around her neck.
The presiding judge at Bala's original trial said when she convicted him in September that it was not clear who actually killed Janiszewski or who might have aided Bala in the crime.
However, she said the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Bala's involvement in the events that led to Janiszewski's disappearance.
Bala said he is innocent, and filed an appeal.
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