The Hon. Barack H. Obama
President of the United States of America

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
U.S.A.

Your Excellency:

As a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany, I am pleased and grateful that you will be visiting Berlin soon. Thank you and “Willkommen!”

I would like to take the occasion of your visit to ask you to resolve the case of Jens Soering, a German citizen currently serving two life sentences in Virginia for a high-profile 1985 double murder. Over the last few years, his petitions for parole and / or repatriation (international prisoner transfer) have garnered enormous media attention in his native country, as well as widespread support at the highest levels of German government. Leading German politicians of all five major parties have publicly expressed support for Mr. Soering and privately contacted US officials and politicians. These include the President of the European Parliament, the President of Germany, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the German parliament, 53 members of the German parliament, and the German government’s Human Rights Commissioner, who also visited Mr. Soering in his rural Virginia prison.

Unfortunately, the Soering case has become highly politicized in Virginia over the last three years. In his final days in office, then-Governor Timothy M. Kaine approved Mr. Soering’s repatriation. But on January 19, 2010, his first working day in office, Governor Robert F. McDonnell blocked the transfer and launched a six-month political and media campaign aimed at forcing Attorney General Eric H. Holder not to process the repatriation.

Then, in January 2011, new DNA tests and a new witness emerged, casting further doubt on Mr. Soering’s conviction. But after Mr. Kaine declared his candidacy for the US Senate on April 5, 2011, Republicans spent the rest of the year attacking him for the attempted repatriation of 2010.

Now that you have been reelected and Governor McDonnell has entered his last year in office, there may be some chance of persuading him to parole Mr. Soering or grant him a conditional pardon. Would you please look into this matter and, as a gesture of friendship to the people of Germany, facilitate the return home of one of our fellow citizens after more than 27 years in prison?

Thanking you very much and looking forward to your visit to Berlin, I remain

Sincerely yours,

Manfred Wehrhahn