Seles’ Attacker Walks Free After Appeal : Tennis: German court rejects plea from former No. 1 player and upholds original verdict in knife assault.

A German court Monday rejected an appeal by tennis star Monica Seles to jail the man who stabbed her two years ago and brought her career to an abrupt halt.

The decision by the Hamburg State Court confirmed the original two-year suspended sentence handed down by a lower court in October 1993, which triggered an international uproar because it allowed the convicted assailant to go free.

As he did before, the 40-year-old attacker, German lathe operator Guenther Parche, walked free after Monday’s ruling.

Seles, who appealed the sentence jointly with the Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office, had demanded her attacker be jailed for 33 months.

In a telephone interview after the judgment, Seles’ attorney, Gerhard Strate, said a further appeal was under consideration but would “not be easy.”

A court official said Seles has a week to lodge a second appeal, but that a further legal challenge could be based only on judicial errors, not on the facts related to the case.

After monitoring the trial, Seles’ family expected the worst, but thought Parche would be ordered to serve some jail time. An adviser who spent the weekend with Seles described her as in shock and deeply disturbed.

In a one-sentence statement, Seles, who lives in Sarasota, Fla., said: “I am as surprised as everyone else, and I just don’t understand this.”

Seles was 19 and the world’s top-ranked tennis player at the time of the assault, which occurred as she was playing in a quarterfinal match of the Citizens Cup in Hamburg. She was stabbed in the back as she rested between games.

Parche inflicted an inch-deep wound with a six-inch-long kitchen knife before he was restrained by courtside security officials.

Seles has only rarely been seen in public since and has played no competitive tennis. In a letter read to the court at the beginning of the appeal, Seles demanded imprisonment for the man who she said “destroyed my life.”

After listening to key witnesses to the attack re-testify, presiding Judge Gertraut Goering on Monday agreed with the lower court that Parche’s assault was meant to injure, but not kill, Seles.

It was this conclusion, together with Parche’s detailed confession as well as his lack of a prior record and mental abnormalities that led to the initial mild sentence.

“Our legal system doesn’t work according to the principle of an eye for an eye,” Goering said. “The court would hope that (Seles) also perceives this ruling as just.”

He added that testimony from Seles would have been necessary to convict Parche on a more serious charge.

“We assume that Parche’s act is the reason that Seles is not able to play tennis anymore, but this cannot be said with certainty because Miss Seles was not willing to testify in court.”

During the original trial, it became clear Parche was obsessed with Seles’ main competitor, Steffi Graf, and he testified that he had wanted to injure Seles so that Graf could regain her status as the world’s No. 1-ranked player.

During the appeal, Parche said his love and admiration for Graf remained “limitless” and said he still sends her flowers and letters on her birthday.

Times staff writer Julie Cart contributed to this report.