Outrage in Germany as judge jails woman, 20, for sending online insults to a gang-rapist - after all but one of nine men convicted of attack on girl, 15, were allowed to walk free from court
- Nine attackers were found guilty of raping a girl in a Hamburg city park in 2020
A woman has been given a prison sentence in Germany for making 'harmful comments' towards a gang-rapist after learning of his heinous crime.
The man was one of nine attackers who were found guilty of brutally raping a 15-year-old girl in a city park in Hamburg - with all but one of the convicted men and teenagers allowed to walk free.
Anger grew online and his name and number were leaked - with a 20-year-old woman among those who messaged him to share their disgust at his horrific act.
'Without thinking twice,' the woman decided to vent her anger at him because she felt he deserved it, labelling him a 'dishonorable rapist pig' and a 'disgusting freak'.
Judges have since found her guilty of a hate crime and have sentenced her to 48 hours in a juvenile detention facility.
Nine attackers - who were aged between 16 and 20 - were found guilty of raping a girl in a Hamburg park in 2020. Pictured: The defendants stand next to their lawyers at the rape trial
The woman, who had no connection to the victim or attackers, said she had been so horrified by the rapes that she contacted one defendant on WhatsApp after his identity began to be circulated on Snapchat.
When she contacted him in 2021, prosecutors said, she warned he would never be able to go anywhere 'without being punched in the face'. She has since apologised.
Police are also investigating 140 other people over similar 'hate' comments about the rapists, including death threats, torture fantasies and racist remarks, Hamburger Abendblatt reports.
The investigation and woman's sentence have sparked further fury online, with many slamming the judge's decision - particularly in light of what they consider to be a lenient sentence for the rapists.
At the trial, eight of the attackers - who were aged between 16 and 20 years old - were put on probation without serving any jail time at all.
All nine that were in court were located because of DNA evidence that proved they had sex with the teenager during a festival in Hamburg's Stadtpark in September 2020.
But while one of them, reportedly a 19-year-old, was sentenced to two years and eight months in a youth prison, and a tenth was acquitted, the rest walked free from Hamburg District Court where half were sentenced to up to two years' probation.
At the rapists' trial, the court heard how the 15-year-old was abused by one group of men after another until a passerby called the police
The other four got off even more lightly and had their sentences deferred for six months, for the rape of the schoolgirl.
None of the defendants have been named publicly but local media reports that five were from Hamburg while the other five were from outside of Germany.
At the rapists' trial, the court heard how the 15-year-old was abused by one group of men after another until a passerby called the police.
