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Suspect breaks silence in trial over rape and death of Chinese student

The woman accused with her boyfriend of raping and killing a Chinese student has broken her silence, speaking out against her partner - who is the son of police officers in Dessau, Saxony-Anhalt.

Published: 16 January 2017 17:11 CET

Suspect breaks silence in trial over rape and death of Chinese student

Defendant Xenia I. in court. Photo: DPA.

The 21-year-old defendants Sebastian F. and Xenia I. are accused of luring the 25-year-old student to an empty apartment in May last year before brutally raping her and leaving her to die.

The pair have thus far remained silent during the trial, until Monday when Xenia I. read a statement in court, explaining how she had been abused by her boyfriend Sebastian F. for years.

She said he had often forced her to take part in sexual acts that she did not want to do, used violence against her, hit her, threatened her, and humiliated her. While she read the statement, she broke into tears as her boyfriend showed no emotion, folded his arms and looked down.

Xenia I. further said her boyfriend had insisted on drawing the 25-year-old young woman to the apartment, where she was raped multiple times and then abandoned for hours by the couple, who thought she would die.

When she did not die immediately, the pair dragged her outside behind a portable toilet, where she was found dead a day later, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The case has attracted particular attention because Sebastian F’s mother is a police officer, and his stepfather is leader of the local police precinct. The mother was also a part of the investigation, interviewing classmates of the victim.

When the case was reported publicly, young woman from Bavaria reported that Sebastian F. had twice raped her, but that when she planned to report him, he threatened that he could use the influence of his stepfather against her.

Germany arrests Syrian man accused of plotting to kill soldiers

The suspect, an “alleged follower of a radical Islamic ideology”, was arrested on Thursday on charges of planning “a serious act of violence endangering the state”.

The man had acquired two heavy knives “around 40 centimetres (more than one foot) in length” in recent days, prosecutors in Munich said.

He planned to “attack Bundeswehr soldiers” in the city of Hof in northern Bavaria during their lunch break, aiming “to kill as many of them as possible”, prosecutors said.

“The accused wanted to attract attention and create a feeling of insecurity among the population,” they said.

German security services have been on high alert over the threat of Islamist attacks, in particular since the Gaza war erupted on October 7th with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Police shot dead a man in Munich this month after he opened fire on officers in what was being treated as a suspected “terrorist attack” on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

The shootout fell on the anniversary of the kidnap and killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.

The 18-year-old suspect had previously been investigated by authorities in his home country Austria on suspicion of links to terrorism but the case had been dropped.

The incident capped a string of attacks in Germany, which have stirred a sense of insecurity in Germany and fed a bitter debate of immigration.

Three people were killed last month in a suspected Islamist stabbing at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

READ ALSO: ‘Ban asylum seekers’ – How Germany is reacting to Solingen attack

The suspect in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was a Syrian man who had been slated for deportation from Germany.

A federal interior ministry spokesman said if an Islamist motive was confirmed in the latest foiled attack, it would be “further evidence of the high threat posed by Islamist terrorism in Germany, which was recently demonstrated by the serious crimes in Mannheim and the attack in Solingen, but also by acts that were fortunately prevented by the timely intervention of the security authorities”.

The Solingen stabbing followed a knife attack in the city of Mannheim in May, which left a policeman dead, and which had also been linked to Islamism by officials.

Germany has responded to the attacks by taking steps to tighten immigration controls and knife laws.

READ ALSO: Debt, migration and the far-right – the big challenges facing Germany this autumn

The government has announced new checks along all of its borders and promised to speed up deportations of migrants who have no right to stay in Germany.

The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned in August that “the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high”.

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