BERLIN, Germany — A court in Germany has convicted four young ‘asylum seekers’ from Eritrea of raping a 56-year-old woman last year.
German news agency dpa reported Tuesday that the regional court in Dessau-Rosslau sentenced to between six and eight years in prison the men described by other media as “asylum seekers.”
The woman was attacked in the eastern German city as she collected empty bottles to earn money in August.
The men, who claimed to be between 18 and 22 years old at the time, promised to give her the bottles from a crate of beer when they’d emptied them. When she returned, they threatened her with a broken bottle and raped her repeatedly.
The woman suffered serious injuries.
Three men admitted the rape. DNA evidence tied all four to the crime.
The defendants were not publicly named. /cbb
Dessau-RoßlauGroup rape in Dessau: deportation after final judgment possible
Wednesday, 01.08.2018, 16:40
Once eight years imprisonment, once seven years and two juvenile sentences over six years: The district court of Dessau on Tuesday sentenced four of the rape accused Eritreans. This ended the trial after five months about a crime that caused a sensation and excitement not only in Dessau-Roßlau more than a year ago.
In the late evening hours of August 15, a mid-fifties man on the edge of downtown Dessau was raped by four men. Speculation and rumors made the round, the policewere accused of inactivity in social media, but was able to arrest four suspects after a short time. Young men around the age of 20, according to their own information, fled Eritrea and lived for some months, sometimes only a few weeks in Germany.
It is a case that was quickly clear from a criminal point of view and was discussed above all because of the particular brutality and the origin of the perpetrators. Probably not least because of this, the prosecutor demanded in her plea high sentences: It must emanate a signal from Dessau. This statement was confirmed by several participants in the closed hearing on Monday. The public had to stay out on this day as in the hearing of the victim.
The four men pulled down the victim's pants and panties, a long martyrdom began
His descriptions were for the first time partially publicized by the verdict. After that, the mid-fifties had taken long walks almost every day collecting bottles. When the woman met the young men from northeastern Africa on August 15 last year, she talked to the only German speaker among them.
The young men drank beer, she asked for the empty bottles, was allowed to take some. The others were promised if she returned later. There were already some personalities at this time. The Dessauerin, so judge Siegrun Baumgarten, this "rejected" - and had returned guilty and unsuspecting at 22.30 clock to the Dessau Palace Square.
For half an hour she waited for the beer bottles to be emptied. Then she was completely surprised by the men arrested. Her pants and panties were pulled down, a long martyrdom began. In the end, one of the men urinated on them, another filmed how she was threatened, just nothing to say. To resist or even scream, the victim had not dared in the face of the four perpetrators.
At night, the first traces were secured at the scene and the victim
The men then left the scene hastily. The woman went home - and shortly thereafter with her husband to the police. At night, the first traces were secured at the scene and the victim. Later, more or less clear DNA of the four convicts was found there.
This helps in the later court proceedings - as well as the extensive confessions of three of the defendants. Only one wants to have been there, but did nothing. The deny both the wife and the co-defendants. The court will sentence him to a six-year juvenile sentence.
This may be imposed on perpetrators between the ages of 18 and 21 if their mental development lags behind their biological age, which, in the court's opinion, applied to two of the defendants. Another had admitted to being older; at the fourth, the court complied with the report it had commissioned, and did not order a new one, as requested by the defense counsel. Both were subject to the usual adult criminal law.
Is deportation possible after the verdict?
According to this, penalties could be imposed between five and 15 years, according to youth law between half and ten years. Judging by judgments in similar cases, the Dessau punishments are in the upper range of the usual. To go beyond, as demanded by the prosecutor, the board refused. "We have no significant increase in these crimes," commented Siegrun Baumgarten, so you do not have to take countermeasures.
In addition, she has the impression that offenses made by foreigners headlines rather than when it comes to German perpetrators. Exactly this circumstance was the prosecutor's office as an argument to own: One must impose particularly harsh penalties, because such acts would strengthen the rights.
Despite the lower penalties, it is unlikely that the prosecutor's office will decide to revise. On the part of the defendants, that could be different, at least for those who denied involvement and whose lawyer had demanded acquittal. If the sentence becomes final, the men could be deported under the residence law, even one of them, who is recognized as a refugee. (Mz)
This article was written by Thomas Steinberg
* The contribution "gang rape in Dessau: deportation after final judgment possible"comes from Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. There is no editorial examination by FOCUS Online. Contact to the person responsible here.
Central German newspaper
https://www.focus.de
