The European Court of Human Rights ruled against a convicted child murderer who had sued Germany over threats from a police officer who was trying to locate his victim’s body.

Magnus Gaefgen, 33, is serving a life sentence for the abduction and murder of the 11-year-old son of a well-known banking family from Frankfurt in September 2002.

The court said Gaefgen experienced what could be described as inhumane treatment during the investigation when an officer was ordered to threaten him with violence to get him to reveal the location of the boy’s body. But it said German courts had already addressed the issue.

The court also ruled that Gaefgen can no longer claim victim status. It also said his rights were not violated during the trial because no evidence gained as a result of the threat was used. German courts had based their conviction on another confession by Gaefgen as well as other evidence.

The European court dismissed Gaefgen’s complaint by a vote of 6-1.

Almut Wittling-Vogel, a German government representative at the trial, welcomed the ruling.

Gaefgen’s attorney Michael Heuchemer, meanwhile, said he would consider an appeal to the court’s Grand Chamber.

In a case that shocked Germany, Gaefgen _ then a law student _ lured the boy into his apartment, suffocated him and then demanded a euro1 million ransom from the child’s parents if they wanted to see the boy again.

Gaefgen was arrested several hours later after collecting the ransom at a train station.

Believing the boy could still be alive, former Frankfurt Deputy Police Chief Wolfgang Daschner ordered an officer to threaten Gaefgen with violence if he did not say where he was hiding the boy.

It was under such pressure that Gaefgen divulged that the body could be found under the jetty of a pond in the Frankfurt area.

In 2004, Daschner was convicted of inducing misuse of authority and coercion and sentenced to a year’s probation. Gaefgen’s lawsuit against German authorities over breaches of law was thrown out.

Gaefgen then turned to the court in Strasbourg, suing Germany for breaching the European Convention on Human Rights by subjecting him to torture during his questioning and denying him a fair trial. The convention prohibits torture and is binding on all 47 member states of the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog.