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Location of abuse: Gazebo in an allotment association that has since been demolished
Photo:
Marcel Kusch / dpa
Two days before the start of the trial of the abuse complex in Münster, the public prosecutor's offices assume a total of 30 suspects.
In addition to the cases already accused by the Münster public prosecutor, investigators in Cologne have now identified 19 initially unknown suspects from several federal states, as a spokesman for the Cologne public prosecutor said.
As a result, specialists from the Cybercrime contact point in Cologne tracked down the newly added accused after evaluating a large amount of data with initially unknown suspects.
The Cologne public prosecutor's office is also investigating a French man arrested in Saarland and a man from Cologne.
The public prosecutor's office has not yet given precise details about the individual proceedings.
The investigation continued and searches were still planned, the spokesman said.
After the suspects have been identified, the on-site investigators usually take over the further proceedings, as the spokesman said.
Five men are now on trial
The extensive investigations have their starting point in Münster.
In the early summer of 2020, a 27-year-old was found there who repeatedly raped the son of his partner and left him to other men for serious sexualized acts of violence via the Internet.
The public prosecutor's office in Münster has indicted eight men and the mother of the alleged main culprit.
The trial against the main defendant and four alleged accomplices begins on Thursday.
The process will primarily revolve around actions in a gazebo.
The three men accused are said to have stunned two boys over a period of days in April and repeatedly abused them severely.
The main defendant's mother is also sitting in the dock: she owns the garden shed, she is said to have known about what happened there.
Only last week, the prosecutor had made further allegations against two suspects.
The evaluation of a previously encrypted mobile phone therefore brought to light three additional acts that are accused of a 50-year-old from Hanover, who had already been separately accused, and of the main defendant.
The 27-year-old, who is at the center of the complex, is said to have brought his partner's son to an apartment in Hanover in June and November 2019, where the 50-year-old is said to have abused him.
In another newly discovered case, the main defendant allegedly raped his foster son himself.
Proceedings are already underway against both of them because of similar incidents.
After Lügde and Bergisch Gladbach, Münster is the third major abuse case in North Rhine-Westphalia in recent years.
The investigations into the abuse case in Münster resulted in arrests in several federal states, including the Saxon cities of Dresden and Pirna.
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mxw / dpa