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CRIME

Cologne court orders major payout to priest abuse victim

A German court on Tuesday ordered the archdiocese of Cologne to pay €300,000 in damages to a victim of repeated sexual abuse by a priest in the 1970s.

A woman observes the sun setting behind Cologne Cathedral.
A woman observes the sun setting behind Cologne Cathedral. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Oliver Berg

A spokeswoman for the Cologne regional court told AFP the 62-year-old plaintiff, who said he was molested more than 300 times by a Roman Catholic priest, had demanded some €750,000 ($809,000). 

She said the archdiocese did not dispute the abuse in court, meaning the judges ruled on the basis that the allegations were true.

Church authorities also opted not to apply a statute of limitations in the case, which she said could set a new precedent for clergy abuse victims.

The court ordered the archdiocese “to pay €300,000 for pain and suffering to the victim, minus a previous payment of €25,000” made by the archdiocese as part of a larger settlement, the spokeswoman said.

READ ALSO: Pope orders probe of German archdiocese over child sex abuse

In addition, the court ordered the plaintiff to be compensated for any future costs relating to the abuse including therapist fees to treat the resulting psychological scars.

Germany’s Catholic Church has been rocked by a deluge of reports in recent years that have exposed widespread abuse of children and youth by clergymen.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference in 2018 concluded that 1,670 clergymen in the country had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014.

However, the real number of victims is thought to be much higher.

An 800-page report on the Cologne diocese alone released in 2021 found 202 alleged perpetrators of sexual assault and 314 victims between 1975 and 2018. More than half of the victims were under 14.

Until now the Catholic Church in Germany has made “voluntary” payments to victims totalling some €40 million, as an acknowledgement of their suffering.

Church payouts for victims of abuse in Germany were increased in 2020 to up to €50,000 from around €5,000 previously, but campaigners say the sum is still inadequate.

Last year alone around €28 million in payments were approved.

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ANTI-SEMITISM

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

Anti-Semitic acts rose sharply in Germany last year, especially after war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October, according to new figures released on Tuesday.

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (RIAS) documented 4,782 anti-Semitic “incidents” in 2023 – an increase of more than 80 per cent on the previous year.

More than half of the incidents – which included threats, physical attacks and vandalism – were registered after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7th attack on Israel, RIAS said.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency last week also published figures showing a new record in anti-Semitic crimes in 2023.

A total of 5,164 crimes were recorded during the year, the agency said, compared with 2,641 in 2022.

Anti-Semitic crimes with a “religious-ideological motivation” jumped to 492 from just 33 the previous year, with the vast majority committed after October 7.

Felix Klein, the government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, said the RIAS figures were “absolutely catastrophic”.

The Hamas attack had acted as an “accelerant” for anti-Semitism in Germany, he told a press conference in Berlin.

“Jewish life in Germany is under greater threat than it has ever been since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded,” he said.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,600 people, also mostly civilians, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Islamophobic incidents also increased dramatically in Germany last year, according to a separate report published on Monday.

The CLAIM alliance against Islamophobia said it had registered 1,926 attacks on Muslims in 2023, compared with just under 900 in 2023.

These included verbal abuse, discrimination, physical violence and damage to property.

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