In what German prosecutors have described as “men hunting in packs at night in Berlin”, young women were dragged into an SUV by Iraqi nationals who raped their victims for hours. The attacks have resulted in the arrest of two brothers and a third suspect.
In the Berlin district court, the two brothers, 33-year-old Wisam and 25-year-old Karrar — both born in Baghdad, Iraq and who hold Iraqi citizenship — have been behind bars since March 25, 2020. Last week, they made their first court appearance, according to newspaper BZ Berlin.
In court, the prosecutor detailed the various charges against the two suspects:
On March, 27, 2018, the older brother raped a 14-year-old girl inside his apartment.
On May 6, 2019, the older brother also raped another woman inside his apartment.
On Jan. 18, 2020, 18-year-old high school Denise T. from Dahlem arrived at the techno club Mensch Meier at 3:30 a.m. in Storkower Street in the Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain, and according to the indictment, was dragged into a KIA SUV by the two brothers and a third Iraqi man who is being tried separately. The three suspects took turns raping the woman both in the SUV and later at the suspects’ apartment. At 7:20 a.m., the girl, who was severely injured, was thrown on to the streets of the Charlottenberg neighborhood.
On Feb. 23, 2020, prosecutors said that the three men went “hunting” at the world-famous Berlin techno club Berghain, also located in Friedrichshain. At around 3 a.m., the men dragged 21-year-old Undine N. into their SUV and raped her several times. The suspects erased all the location date from her smartphone before allowing her to leave.
The accused men refuse to speak during the trial or to investigators, but the women have been extensively questioned by authorities.
Christina Clemm, the lawyer who represents the high school graduate, Denise T, discussed the horror the girl has gone through during the sexual assault she faced.
“She was scared to death for almost four hours,” she says.
The defendants must leave the courtroom when the victims provide evidence in the case and the woman are delivering their testimony via video transmission. Public are not allowed to attend the hearings.
Berlin has recently seen a large increase in rapes in 2020, with migrants accounting for nearly half of all rapes despite making up only a small percentage of Berlin’s overall population. Regarding the other half of suspects, it is unclear what percentage of them have migrant backgrounds and how many are ethnic Germans.
Title image: Guests attend the opening of the ‘Pop-Kultur’ festival in the Berghain club in Berlin. (Jeers Carstensen/dpa via AP, file)
