A 45-year-old German man who had offered babysitting services online went on trial in the western city of Cologne on Tuesday, charged with nearly 100 counts of child sexual abuse.
Prosecutors told the regional court in Cologne that the man documented the abuse of babies, children and teenagers and shared videos and images of “unimaginable brutality” with dozens of people, German news agency Dpa reported. .
Investigators who uncovered a large amount of incriminating data last year at the married man’s home in the city of Wermelskirchen said at the time they had never “encountered such a level of inhuman brutality and callous indifference to suffering of little children”.
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Prosecutors are seeking a 15-year prison sentence followed by continued security confinement if the man, whose name has not been released due to privacy concerns, is convicted.
In a separate case on Tuesday, four men were convicted by a Frankfurt court of their involvement in an online platform known as ‘Boystown’, which is used to disseminate images of child sexual abuse.
The defendant in the Wermelskirchen abuse compound holds a file in front of his face in a courtroom in Cologne, Germany, December 6, 2022.
(Oliver Berg/dpa via AP)
A 49-year-old man and a 42-year-old man were sentenced to 12 and 10 years in prison, respectively. The court also ordered them to be detained after their terms ended, Frankfurt prosecutors said.
A 60-year-old German man who was arrested sitting at his computer in Paraguay has been sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in running the darknet site. A 66-year-old man from Hamburg, considered a particularly active user, received a seven-year sentence, officials said.
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The verdicts can be appealed.
The Boystown site was a major international platform for child sexual abuse images with over 400,000 members before it was taken down last year.
Authorities are working to identify more users of the site and bring them to trial.
