After an Iranian refugee woman was gang-raped in the city of Iserlohn, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, four suspects have been arrested, all with Iranian origins. They will be brought before a judge today, according to prosecutors in Hagen, with authorities alleging the rape was “politically motivated.”
According to police, the four men tied up the 30-year-old woman and “sexually humiliated” her inside an old brewery building on Saturday. Witnesses heard screaming coming from the building and alerted police at around 11:30 p.m., police and prosecutors reported.
Officers found the injured woman, who was taken to the hospital.
The four suspects are males aged 24, 34, 42 and 46. They claim to be Dutch and Danish citizens with Iranian roots, according to police. Police tracked them down with a helicopter and found them inside a forest.
The investigators ruled out a xenophobic motive. The extent to which there was a possible political background to the crime is still the subject of ongoing investigations. It is also still unclear whether the victim and the suspects knew each other, according to German newspaper Welt.
According to initial questioning, two other suspects may have been involved in the crime. The search for these fugitive suspects is still ongoing, as is the analysis of mobile phones confiscated at the crime scene.
Gang rape and foreigners in North Rheine-Westphalia
The news comes shortly after gang rape statistics were published for the first time in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia involving the first name of “German” suspects. Of these suspects who are listed as German, nearly half have foreign, mostly Muslim, names.
Data has already shown for years that half of all gang rapes in the state are committed by foreigners, and now it is clear that another quarter appear to have been committed by German citizens of foreign origin, indicating that at least 75 percent of gang rapes are committed by foreigners or Germans with a foreign background.
The state, which is the most populous in Germany, has seen crime soar in 2023, with foreigners responsible for a hugely disproportionate share of rape and sexual assault.
