A German woman was given a harsher sentence than a convicted rapist because she called her rapist a “disgraceful rapist pig.”
According to reports, 20-year-old Maya R. received a weekend jail sentence after being found guilty of defaming a man who was one of nine assailants in the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl in a Hamburg park four years ago.
The man was given a suspended sentence and did not serve any prison time because of his age. The New Zealand Herald reported.
Maya R. reportedly did not know her rapist but was one of at least 140 people who sent him derogatory messages on WhatsApp after her name and phone number were leaked on Snapchat.
“Aren’t you ashamed when you look in the mirror?” she wrote, calling him a “disgraceful rapist pig” and a “disgusting weirdo.”
She also told the attacker that she “can’t go anywhere without getting kicked in the face” and “let’s hope they’re just locked up.”
Maya R. told the court she sent the message “without thinking twice”, a brave move in a country known for its strict defamation laws.
But the paediatric nursing student apologised to her rapist and told the court she “was no use to anyone”.
The man, who the New Zealand Herald did not name, was one of nine boys convicted in September 2020 of abusing a 15-year-old girl over a period of several hours.
Nearly all avoided prison time thanks to Germany’s juvenile law, except for one Iranian national who brazenly admitted responsibility for the rape, telling the court: “What man wouldn’t want that?”
Maya R.’s sentence was harsher than that of the rapist she defamed because she had been convicted of theft and had not attended court hearings in the case.
A court spokesman told local media that Maya R.’s hostility was emblematic of the lingering public anger over the rape case, even four years on.
He said the incident had “reached a new and worrying level of intensity” and described the criticism as a “targeted attack on the rule of law.”
Germany is famously known for its strict libel laws that criminalize even the mildest libel.
In Germany, calling someone an “idiot” can be punishable by up to two years in prison.
