Woman jailed for insulting gang rapist

Eight men walked free after gang-raping 15-year-old girl in a case that stunned the world. Now there has been an enraging update.

A young woman has been sent to prison for insulting a man who walked free after gang-raping a 15-year-old girl in a Hamburg city park.

In 2020, a heavily intoxicated teenager was repeatedly raped by several men in the German city.

The case sent shockwaves around the world last year, when it was revealed eight out of the nine perpetrators would not face prison time. They received suspended sentences. Only one rapist was sent to youth prison for two years and nine months. One was acquitted.

Now, a 20-year-old woman from the city has been sent to prison after making “hateful” remarks towards a migrant who was involved and remains at large.

Last week, a young woman was convicted by a district court of insulting and threatening one of the rapists, a justice spokeswoman confirmed to German national newspaper Die Welt.

The verdict against the man is not yet final, it is still pending before the Federal Court of Justice. However, he has not served any jail time.

The newspaper reports the young woman jailed for insulting him had found his number online — as it was circulating on Snapchat.

She then insulted him via the messenger service WhatsApp. According to local newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt, she wrote, among other things, that he was a “dishonourable rapist pig” and a “disgusting freak”. She also threatened him that he would “not be able to go anywhere anymore” without being beaten up.

View of the fairground in the city park where the horrific gang rape took place. Picture: MARCUS BRANDT / DPA / dpa Picture-Alliance via AFP

Last Tuesday, the Hamburg-Wandsbek District Court sentenced her to a period of detention for insulting and threatening.

The young woman, who wants to become a nurse, was already on record; she had previously received a disciplinary measure because she was caught stealing low-value items — worth less than 25 euros ($40).

The detention means a weekend behind bars, from Friday evening to Sunday evening. She will have to spend the detention in the Hahnöfersand youth detention centre, a justice spokeswoman told Die Welt. This means she will be locked up longer than the young man she insulted, who only received a suspended sentence. Die Welt reports her verdict is not yet final.

Authorities in Hamburg are investigating 140 cases of insults, threats or other statements to the detriment of the rapists, the Hamburger Abendblatt reports.

Horrific gang rape

The ten men accused of the crime had been charged with raping the girl during a two-and-a-half-hour ordeal on the night of September 19, 2020.

The girl had attended a party in the park, which had become a popular meeting area during Covid, on the day of the attack.

According to prosecutors, four of the men led the girl, who had a blood-alcohol level of at least 0.16 per cent, into a bush and performed sexual acts on her against her will.

One of them stole her mobile phone and wallet.

Hamburg city park in Germany. Picture: Marcus Brandt/dpa

Finally, three other defendants then took the girl into the bushes.

One of those, a 23-year-old, was acquitted as the court could not determine whether all three raped her.

Because the perpetrators were aged between 17 and 21 at the time, the case was conducted by a youth chamber and the public was excluded from the proceedings.

The trial began in May, 2022 and ran for 68 days, with the court hearing from 96 witnesses and several experts.

While there were no direct witnesses, DNA evidence connected nine of the defendants to the crime.

The presiding judge described it as a “mammoth circumstantial trial in which it was not clear for a long time what had happened on the night of September 19th to 20th, 2020”, Spiegel reported.

The court heard that two videos were filmed, of the first and last rapes, but that both videos were irretrievably deleted shortly after the crime and were not available to investigators.

According to Die Welt of the ten defendants, five were German citizens, the others were from Syria, Montenegro, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Armenia. Three of the cases that ended in suspended sentences have now been legally concluded. The men were also required to complete 60 hours of community service each.

Prosecutors had sought sentences of between one year and three months to three years for nine of the defendants, while defence lawyers sought acquittal for all 10.

According to Spiegel, under juvenile criminal law in Germany the length of youth sentences is based on the educational needs of the individual defendant.

The court heard none of the defendants had committed sexual offences before or had previously faced a youth sentence.

Psychiatrist Nahlah Saimeh. Picture: X

Psychiatrist Nahlah Saimeh, who reportedly appeared before the court as an expert witness, said in a controversial interview with Spiegel that the gang rape may have been a way to vent “frustration” due to “migration experiences and sociocultural homelessness”.

Dr Saimeh said perpetrators “who live on the margins of society, completely uprooted culturally, linguistically and socially” could face a “mix of emotions of anger, sadness, powerlessness, depression, fantasies of grandeur as a compensation attempt to cope with one’s own misery, and drug use”.

“Disordered, unprepared migration experiences and sociocultural homelessness increase the risk of addiction and psychosis,” she said.

“Sex is also a means of venting frustration and anger, a means of warding off sadness and emptiness, and in a group of men with the same fate it also creates identity and strengthens the group feeling.”

— with Frank Chung