Truth stranger than fiction as author jailed

Wed Sep 5, 2007 10:32AM EDT

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish crime writer has been jailed for 25 years after authorities found he had committed a murder that had been described in one of his thrillers, officials said Wednesday.

In his 2003 book "Amok," Krystian Bala described in detail the brutal murder of a Polish businessman.

Police found that the fictional crime had similarities with a case in 2000 when a body was fished out of the river Oder in the town of Wroclaw, near the German border.

Prosecutors said Bala had humiliated, tortured, starved and later killed his victim, who had a love affair with the writer's wife.

"The court has sentenced Krystian B. to 25 years in prison for the murder of his ex-wife's lover," said a spokesman for the court in Wroclaw.

Bala told authorities that he had taken details of the case from press reports and made up other aspects of the story.