Icon: enlarge
Entrance to the Berlin Regional Court (archive image)
Photo: Taylan Gökalp / dpa
The Berlin district court has sentenced a 33-year-old serial rapist to 13 years and six months in prison.
Wisam BB was found guilty of serious rape, hostage-taking, deprivation of liberty and assault, among other things.
The convict had destroyed the lives of several women within two years, said the presiding judge Denise Wittkopf at the verdict.
The right to impose preventive detention remains reserved.
The board considered it proven that BB had committed the rapes he was accused of between March 2018 and February 2020.
The attacks were "planned, particularly cruel and brutal."
The 33-year-old is an unscrupulous perpetrator who tortured his victims for hours.
In two cases, the man allegedly dragged a woman into his car on the street and raped her with accomplices.
"They purposefully hunted young women," said the presiding judge on an act in February 2020. The victim of this attack was so abused that the 21-year-old was in danger of death.
In another case about a month earlier, a then 18-year-old was suddenly dragged into a car, raped, then taken to an apartment and sexually abused again.
The women were scared to death.
The apartment was the address of the defendant's younger brother.
This had previously been acquitted in separate proceedings.
The defendant also raped young women in two cases in an apartment in Berlin-Wedding, the verdict said.
His latest victim was a 14-year-old student in March 2018 who was friends with his half-brother.
"Silent, denied and lied"
From the actions of the accused speak a deep contempt for women, so the presiding judge.
He had demonstrated a "sadistic claim to power free from any compassion".
The order of preventive detention could still be imposed at a later point in time if, through further observation of the accused in the penal system, a more certain prognosis was possible as to whether he would still pose a danger to the general public after serving his sentence.
The prosecution had pleaded for a sentence of thirteen years and ten months in prison and for preventive detention.
The defense attorney demanded an acquittal.
The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Judge Wittkopf concluded by saying that the procedure was "an unreasonable expectation" for everyone involved.
During the trial, the convicted “remained silent, denied and lied” and thus forced the survivors to have to go through the crimes again in court.
The failures of the investigative authorities that came to light during the trial are also "unbearable".
"We had to realize that money and a lack of staff at the State Criminal Police Office hindered the investigation," said Wittkopf.
It is questionable whether at least one of the acts could have been prevented.
Icon: The mirror
wit / AFP / dpa
