As of: March 1, 2024, 3:47 p.m
Comments
Press
Split
The defendant (l) stands in the conference room in the criminal justice building at the beginning of the trial for child sexual abuse.
© Marcus Brandt/dpa
A 43-year-old is said to have helped a family escape from Ukraine - and then sexually abused their sons.
According to the indictment, there were even more victims.
Now the trial began in Hamburg.
Hamburg - While the prosecutor read out the indictment with many gruesome details, the alleged perpetrator in the Hamburg district court held a file in front of his face the entire time.
No one in the audience should see the face of the man who the prosecution accuses of sexually abusing several boys in Germany and Thailand over the years.
The defendant has also had to answer in the trial since Friday for coercion and production of child pornographic content.
There are 19 crimes involved.
A family from Ukraine filed a complaint against the man.
According to the information, the now 43-year-old contacted them over the Internet and helped them escape to Germany in March 2022.
Outwardly he played the protector, but terrible acts are said to have happened in Germany.
According to the indictment, the man is said to have abused two of the family's sons, who were nine to eleven years old at the time of the crime, on several days until April 2023 - mostly in his car.
According to the prosecutor, he flew with the older child to Frankfurt am Main, where the abuse also occurred in the hotel room.
In order to ensure that this boy continued to meet him, the defendant is said to have threatened his victim.
The strong man, who appeared in court in a checked shirt and sneakers, worked as a public servant.
Although he worked in a completely different field, prosecutors said he claimed he had the power to have the family deported from Germany.
“You are no longer welcome here,” was one of the text messages that the prosecutor read out.
The defendant, who has no criminal record, is also said to have sexually abused boys between the ages of six and ten on several occasions between November 2021 and April 2023 while traveling to Thailand and to have taken pictures of them.
Until his apartment was searched in July 2023, the man is said to have kept 783 image and six video files with child pornographic content on data storage media.
He is in custody.
The prosecutor reported that the 43-year-old took videos and photos of the children during his actions.
It took the lawyer a long time to list the countless files with descriptions of the boys' abuse.
Bed sheets with cartoon drawings, the focus of the camera, the instructions of the person filming, the children's facial expressions full of disgust or pain - the prosecution recorded terrible details on many pages.
The prosecutor repeatedly had to interrupt the reading and take a sip of water.
If the defense had had its way, the entire trial would have taken place behind closed doors.
But the judges rejected this across the board.
However, they agreed that spectators had to leave the courtroom for the defendant's testimony.
According to a spokesman, the court has scheduled a total of six trial days until March 27th.
It continues on March 5th.
dpa