Hamburg Regional Court sentences 18-year-old to four and a half years youth custody
An 18-year-old was sentenced in Hamburg for online coercion of seven girls into sexual acts and assault.
18-year-old from Hamburg convicted of online coercion and assault
The Hamburg Regional Court has sentenced an 18-year-old to youth custody of four years and six months, as reported by DER SPIEGEL (Justice & Crime). The verdict was handed down for multiple cases of child sexual abuse without physical contact and dangerous assault in ten cases, some as indirect perpetration. The sentence is not yet final.
The defendant is said to have pressured seven girls on the internet to force them into sexual and self-harming acts in front of a webcam. The court found 20 cases within the so-called Com network—a network of loosely linked online groups—to be proven. The convicted person is said to have acted partly alone and partly jointly with others. As he was still a minor at the time of the offences, the proceedings were held in camera.
The court additionally convicted the defendant of seven cases of dangerous assault. He is said to have lured homosexual men via dating portals under a false name to meetings and attacked them there—sometimes jointly with others—without warning.
The youth chamber also examined a possible connection to the case of the so-called "White Tiger", a 21-year-old German-Iranian who has also been on trial at the Hamburg Regional Court since January. However, the court found no evidence of collaboration between the two defendants. The 21-year-old is accused of committing a total of 204 criminal offences between 2021 and 2023. He is said to have driven mentally unstable adolescents via the internet to commit acts of violence against themselves; a 13-year-old is said to have committed suicide. The indictment charges murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Behind the "White Tiger" complex, according to investigators' findings, stands an extensive network of perpetrators who cause minors to engage in self-harm. SPIEGEL uncovered the case and documented it in a podcast series.
---
Support services: - Telephone counselling (suicide prevention): 0800 111 0 111 (free, 24/7) - Help after sexual abuse: 0800 2255 530 - Online suicide prevention: u25-deutschland.de