Tuesday 29 December 2020
Assaults in Cologne in 2015
Laschet asks New Year's victims for forgiveness
Five years ago, women were mass victims of sexual assault on New Year's Eve in Cologne. NRW Prime Minister Laschet is now asking for forgiveness for state failures – and speaks about the "bitter" legal record.
Five years after the massive sexual assaults against women on New Year's Eve in Cologne, the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Armin Laschet asked the victims for forgiveness. These were "let down by the state", wrote the CDU politician in a guest article for the "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger". That is why he asks the victims for forgiveness – regardless of "who was politically responsible at the time".
On New Year's Eve 2015/16 there were numerous sexual assaults against women and other crimes such as theft around Cologne Central Station and the cathedral. These were perpetrated from a large crowd. Many of the suspects were of North African origin. The events caused horror and heated discussions nationwide.
Laschet now criticizes the "blatant omissions" that night. 661 women had "lived through a nightmare" five years ago. Many of them have suffered the consequences to this day. It is also a "bitter balance" that there were only 36 convictions in more than 1200 reports and only three men were convicted of sexual offenses.
The judiciary can hardly heal such wounds, wrote Laschet. "But we can promise to do our best that a night like this will never happen again." The events were an "urgent appeal" to "restore trust in the defensive rule of law quickly and extensively". His state government, which was not yet in office at the time, therefore opted for "zero tolerance" for crime.
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