For assaulting an asylum seeker in a forest near Emmen, a 79-year-old man from Haren, Germany, has demanded a six-month prison sentence, half of which is conditional. The victim was picked up by the suspect at the asylum seekers’ center in Ter Apel in early March 2019.
The Nigerian man himself went to the police in Emmen after the incident. He was assaulted by an old man who offered to take him to the station in Emmen. Instead, the driver parked the car in a forest and locked the doors. He desired sexual acts. The hitchhiker did as he was told out of fear.
The step to the police station was quite a threshold for him, the man said in his report at the time. He had never dared to do this in his native country, he said. He described the inside of the car in detail and showed a photo of the license plate that he had taken. The agents came to the man in Germany via that license plate. He immediately denied.
Until he was confronted with the DNA trace found on the victim’s hand. The cell material matched that of the elderly man. “Then that would have happened, but voluntarily,” said the suspect at the hearing. There were several reports in the police system of a car with the suspect’s license plate circling the center.
That’s right, said the suspect. He regularly came to Ter Apel to do some shopping. He sometimes picked up asylum seekers who were carrying full bags. “I did this out of goodness,” said the man. He was unaware of a 2016 report from another asylum seeker who said he had been sexually assaulted by an older man. That man also got a ride and mentioned the license plate of the suspect’s car.
The elderly man denied at the time and there was no more evidence. The public prosecutor found that the suspect was calculating. He carefully selected his victims. “A man who is now 79 years old and with the necessary ailments,” said the prosecutor, “But also a very elderly person is not allowed to commit serious crimes with impunity.” And the prison sentence serves as retribution for the suffering he has caused to others and society.
The German’s lawyer found it incomprehensible that the case had been shelved for so long. She found it almost impossible for the suspect to remember exactly what happened four years later.
The court will rule in two weeks.