A man accused of drowning a 23-year-old medical student after a brutal sex attack confessed to the killing as he played cards with an inmate in jail, a murder trial has heard.

Accused Sebastian T., 21, is said to have attacked victim Hanna Woerndl after spotting her coming home from the local Eiskeller nightclub while he was out jogging.

Prosecutors in Traunstein, Bavaria, State, Germany, say he subjected her to a vicious beating before sexually abusing her and dumping her in a river.

Police say she struggled desperately for at least five minutes before she drowned in October last year.

Sebastian T. has been held in custody awaiting trial since November 2022.

Now a fellow inmate at his jail has told the trial how he admitted to the killing while they played a game of cards.

The 22-year-old witness, who has not been named, told judges at Trainstein Regional Court at a hearing on 24th October the confession came after weeks of denials.

The witness told Head Judge Jacqueline Assbichler: “He told me for some time he had nothing to do with the Eiskeller murder.

“However, it seemed to me that he was lying.”

The inmate said Sebastian T. admitted to hitting Hanna several times before throwing her into the water.

He’s said to have told him: “I didn’t mean to kill her.”

During the dramatic confession before Christmas last year, the judges heard Sebastian T. told his fellow inmate that he’d known Hanna and had been attracted to her for years.

The inmate stated that Sebastian T. said he had attacked Hannah after a long string of rejections from women.

The special 22-year-old witness had contacted justice officials earlier this month and told them he wanted to make a witness statement.

Sebastian T. was only caught when he came forward after police appealed for information about a jogger with a head torch near the nightclub Hannah had been at.

As police checked his story, they became convinced he was the killer and arrested him six weeks after Hanna’s body had been found by a passerby.

His arrest came after a massive police investigation.

More than 1,000 witnesses were traced and interviewed, including 700 who had been at the nightclub on the night Hannah disappeared.

Their 20,000-page case file was used to make a Crime Stoppers-style TV appeal for witnesses.

Suspect Sebastian T. has remained silent in court.

But his lawyer, Harald Baumgaertl, dismissed the prosecution case to local media.

He said: “There have only been indications and assumptions but not a single matching DNA trace.“

The trial continues.