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Switzerland implicates 600 Germans in paedophile network

Six hundred Germans are suspected of involvement in an Internet paedophile network uncovered in Switzerland, where four men have already been arrested in the investigation.

Published: 4 September 2008 00:32 CEST

Forty Austrian men are also involved, judicial authorities in the northeastern Swiss canton of St. Gallen said on Wednesday. Four Swiss men have been arrested for “acts of a sexual nature” against children, and for producing pornographic films and images involving young girls.

Legal proceedings have also been launched against another nine Swiss men aged between 20 and 65. Two of the men are accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl and posting images of the abuse on the internet forum.

The homes of the 13 men have been searched by police, and computer hard-drives and other equipment have been confiscated. Austrian police said Wednesday they had opened a case against 15 men between 30 and 60 years old following the break-up of the paedophile network.

Police spokesman Helmut Greiner said Swiss authorities had sent the IP addresses of 35 Austrians to their colleagues in Vienna in connection with the probe in Switzerland.

Cyber-crime investigators uncovered the network which was hosted by a St. Gallen-based Internet service provider. Investigating magistrate Ursula Brasey told Swiss news agency ATS that the head of the ISP had alerted the authorities to the content of the site, and would not face any charges.

The German-language forum featured accounts from different men about their experiences with young girls and how best to ‘groom’ them for pornographic ends, the authorities said.

Suspect held in latest attack on German politicians

The German government condemned the “growing despicable attacks”, stressing that the “climate of intimidation, of violence” was something that could not be accepted.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz blasted the attacks against politicians as “outrageous and cowardly”, stressing that violence did not belong in a democratic debate.

Franziska Giffey was at a library on Tuesday afternoon when the suspect came up from behind her to slug her in the head and neck with a bag containing hard objects, police said.

Giffey, who is now Berlin state’s economy minister and a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), was treated in hospital for light injuries.

The detained suspect was previously known to investigators over “state security and hate crimes”, said police, adding that they were investigating the motive of the attack.

Prosecutors were also considering if the man should be sent to psychiatric care because of indications that he might be mentally ill.

Giffey said she was “feeling well after the initial scare”. But she was “concerned and shaken about a growing ‘free wild culture’ in which people who are engaging politically in our country are increasingly exposed to attacks that are supposedly justified and acceptable.

“We live in a free and democratic country, in which everyone can be free to express his or her opinions,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“But there is a clear line — and that is violence against people,” she added.

Berlin’s current mayor Kai Wegner said anyone who attacked politicians was “attacking our democracy.

“We will not tolerate this,” he added, vowing to examine “tougher sentences for attacks against politicians”.

Nazi salutes

A European member of parliament, also from the SPD, had to be hospitalised last week after four people attacked him as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden.

Matthias Ecke, 41, needed an operation for serious injuries suffered in the attack, which Scholz denounced as a threat to democracy. Four suspects, aged between 17 and 18, are being investigated over the incident.

READ ALSO: Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

All four are believed to have links to the far-right group known as “Elblandrevolte”, according to German media.

Dresden has been a hotspot for assaults against politicians, with another case reported on Tuesday.

S-Bahn in Dresden

An S-Bahn train drives through Dresden. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Robert Michael

A politician, identified by police only as a 47-year-old from the Green party, was threatened and spat on. She was putting up campaign posters for the European elections when a man came up, pushed her to the side and tore down two posters.

READ ALSO: Germany unveils new plan to fight far-right extremism

He insulted and threatened the politician, while a woman joined in and spat on the victim, police said. Officers arrested both suspects, police added, identifying them as a 34-year-old German man and a 24-year-old woman.

Both were in a group standing at the area and who had begun making the banned Hitler salute when the politician began putting up the posters.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year. Nevertheless, that was down from the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when the last general elections were held.

By Hui Min Neo

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