SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Reul, next week at the District Court Detmold the verdict in the Lügde trial is spoken, everything points to high prison sentences for the two defendants. Do you want a judgment that has a signal effect?
Herbert Reul: And how! I've noticed in recent months that politics has not taken child abuse seriously enough. That needs to change. Logically, this also means that anyone who hurts children in this way, notes: This can end badly for me.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The prosecutor demands 14 years in prison for the main accused Andreas V., who allegedly abused children at the campsite in Lügde for years. For his accomplice, Mario S., there should be twelve and a half years. Is that appropriate?
Reul: That's what the judge has to decide. In general, however, I consider the penalties in this offense field too low. At the Conference of Interior Ministers, I pushed for a decision: we want the statutory minimum sentence for child sexual abuse and for child pornography offenses to be raised to one year. Then these offenses would be legally classified as a crime. Anyone who distributes child pornography should be able to go to prison for a maximum of ten years, not as before, for a maximum of five years.
DPA
Herbert Reul (Archive): "I was typical of many in politics and society"
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Heiko V., the third defendant in the Lügde trial, took part in the abusive acts via live broadcast on the Internet. In his case, the verdict was already spoken, he got a suspended sentence.
Reul: I did not understand that, but I do not have to. It was important to me that all the defendants stood at the beginning of the process. I was so relieved. I've had a lot of bitching with my policemen in the end. In the end, you've seen that the investigators have worked so well despite the mistakes that the prosecution has been able to file charges quickly and effectively.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have been in politics for more than 40 years, have you ever dealt with child molestation before the Lügde case?
Reul: No. I think I was typical of many in politics and society. In the past, when it came to sexual violence, we said, yes, that is true, but these are exceptions. We did not have the topic on the pan, we lost it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can you give an example?
Reul: We have around 40,000 police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia, of which 9,000 are at the police department. I've just had a look at how many jobs there have been up to now with officials involved in child abuse. The result: 104 digits. When I saw that, I thought, better hide yourself.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why does it always seem to need drastic cases like the one in Lügde, so that something changes?
Reul: Unfortunately, we often only react in politics when the hut is burning. On the other hand, the police can not deal with every problem in the same way, that's impossible. But that should not be an excuse. I now recognize the need for action, sexual abuse of children has become the topic of my term.
DPA
"Change awareness in police departments"
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What are you doing?
Reul: We have founded the Department of Child Abuse and Child Pornography. It has the task to change the consciousness in the police authorities, and to overwhelm them. Out of the 104 bodies with the field of child abuse, there are now 160. This is a start. We have created more than 300 training places for civil servants trained in interviewing victims of abuse. We want to use more undercover child molest investigators. And in the State Criminal Police Office in Dusseldorf photos and videos that have been secured in the case of suspects, are presorted using artificial intelligence.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will you be able to prevent cases like those in Lügde?
Reul: We will probably never be able to completely avoid having children abused. Unfortunately.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But Lügde is a special case, from the first clues to the deeds of Andreas V. until his arrest passed 17 years. Can you rule out that something like this is repeated?
Reul: I can not. But the likelihood that this will happen again in this dimension is almost zero. When a man went to police Lippe a few years ago to report to Andreas V., he got to hear there: Watch what you say there, you could even file an ad for libel. I bet that abuse and sexual violence in general are now being treated more sensitively in our police departments.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If you address politicians from other states on the topic, what answers do you get?
Reul: They say: Important topic, let's take care of it, but we are not there yet. Some colleagues also say: Lying, that's your case. That's right, but I've also learned in recent months that sexual abuse happens under our very eyes, presumably everywhere.
This topic comes from the new SPIEGEL magazine - available at the kiosk from Saturday morning and every Friday at SPIEGEL + and in the digital magazine edition.
What is in the new SPIEGEL and what stories you find at SPIEGEL +, you will also learn in our free policy newsletter DIE LAGE, which appears six times a week - compact, analytical, opinionated, written by the political minds of the editorial.
