Sexual acts with a child, rape, human trafficking and robbery are the allegations against seven young men. The trial at the Winterthur District Court lasts several weeks.
The trial at the Winterthur district court is scheduled to last several weeks.
There is rarely such a crowd in the dock at the Winterthur district court: seven young men take a seat. Four of them were under 18 at the time of the crime and are considered juveniles under criminal law: the main suspect began a sexual relationship at the age of 16 with a 12-year-old girl who was his slave.
He is said to have “made the victim available against his will, his colleagues and cousins.” Some of the sexual acts were filmed and distributed via social networks. The young men are accused of, among other things, multiple sexual acts with a child, rape, human trafficking, robbery and extortion.
The individual suspects are said to have been involved in different crime complexes. The indictment against the main suspect alone is 70 pages long and covers 32 facts. The process is estimated to take several weeks. The verdicts are scheduled to open on July 8. The public is excluded from the process. For the accredited court reporters, detailed information such as age, nationality, occupations of those involved as well as places of residence or crime are taboo.
Transmissions via video
How differently the girl and her former dream man assess the events and their relationship to one another becomes clear right from the start of the first day of the trial: for those involved, the interrogations of the opposing parties are transmitted to other rooms by video. The victim therefore does not meet the accused in court.
The main accused is extremely self-confident and surprisingly communicative. He explains that the relationship was never a love affair for him. At the beginning he didn’t know that the girl was only 12 years old when he met her at a colleague’s house. He was 16 years old then.
The girl seemed mature to him and sent him nude pictures of her own accord, he claims. The first sex, which took place in a cloakroom toilet before football training, was agreed. He noticed that the girl was in love with him, but wanted to break off contact again and again. Because the girl kept bringing him money, he didn’t succeed. He was only with him for greed, not for sex.
According to the indictment, the girl is said to have given him around 15,000 francs, which she stole from his parents, during the relationship, which lasted around two years. He used it to buy shoes and clothes. He admits hitting the girl when she promised him money and didn’t give it. In court, however, he asserts that he never asked the girl to have sex with the other young people. Everything was always voluntary. “It just happened,” he explains, “we were young, we wanted to try it and gain experience and we had fun.”
The presiding judge wants to know why they recorded sexual acts on video. “It’s something you don’t experience every day. It was just cool, I was an idiot.” Today he regrets it. He freely admits that he is a person who always wants to be the center of attention. He wants to be a rapper. The indictment says: “He used his position of power consciously and purposefully to present himself to his friends and ‘cousins’ as a playboy and gangster, which girls (. . .) in every respect and purposefully both for his own as well as manipulate, dominate, humiliate and use like a commodity for the sexual satisfaction of third parties.»
“I loved him to death”
The descriptions of the victim, who repeatedly suppressed his tears during the questioning, sound completely different. She was very much in love with the main accused, from the moment she had sex with him for the first time, she was “blown away”. It wasn’t until a year later – at the age of 13 – that she got her period for the first time. The sex with the main suspect was always consensual, but not with the other parties involved. “I just did what he said,” it explains. “I loved him to death, I would have done anything for the guy.”
The relationship was one-sided, he hit and exploited her. “Another woman would have left him immediately. I couldn’t let go.” Whenever he needed money, he was nice. If she didn’t give him any money, he hit her, but then comforted her again. She rarely got close to him. The only way she could be close to him was through sex, that’s why she valued it so much. “Actually, I would have been satisfied with just a hug.”
She declares that today she no longer loves him. However, there was never a deliberate break in contact. For a long time she had not filed a criminal complaint because she was in love with him. Only when she came to a closed home for her protection was she able to free herself. “It was like having a drug taken away from you.” At some point she wants to take the step herself, look him in the eye and say “it’s done.”
However, in the courtroom, it has an irritating effect on viewers when she returns him via video a greeting that she received from one of his cousins. The girl was so obedient to the main suspect that she even took him to the police for protection. Even after the criminal complaint, it continued to meet with him.
According to the indictment, the accused is said to have “made his victim available” to his friends and cousins for sexual acts in at least six cases. Once he is said to have put out a cigarette in his face. The main suspect has been in prison for over two years. The prosecution is seeking a 10-year prison sentence and a young adult measure. The three accused, who were of legal age at the time of the crime, are to receive prison sentences of 4½ to 5 years and 10 years of expulsion from the country. Conditional prison sentences are requested for the juveniles.