The Hamburg public prosecutor's office is investigating the operator of an Instagram account on which the names and photos of alleged suspects in a rape case were published.
The proceedings against unknown persons were initially initiated because of insult, said a spokeswoman.
The investigation is still in its infancy.
On Tuesday lunchtime, the pictures were deleted from the account, apparently by the operator himself.
The men shown on the account are said to have been accused of group rape in Hamburg's Stadtpark in September 2020.
A fifteen-year-old had celebrated with friends at the time, but lost sight of them.
While looking for them, she came across a group of young people who are said to have led them into a bush and raped them there.
Petition calls for "immediate procedure"
The online pillory seems to have been preceded by a report by the Bild newspaper last week, which among other things was about the fact that the suspects in the case are currently all at large. The profile picture of the account shows a screenshot of the article. The account partly used the same photos of the alleged perpetrators that can also be seen in the picture, but without obscuring them and stating their full names. As the newspaper reported on Tuesday, violence against the men was called in the comments on the Instagram account and in a Telegram chat.
An online petition launched on Thursday also called for an "immediate procedure" and "the publication of the perpetrators' faces". In the petition, the alleged perpetrators are referred to as “wild animals” that “did not belong freely among humans”. More than 9,200 people signed up by Tuesday afternoon. It is unclear whether the petition and the Instagram account are related.
As the Hamburg public prosecutor announced on Tuesday, their investigation into the rape case is “close to completion”. A total of eleven suspects were identified, who are now between 17 and 21 years old. The seized sperm traces could be assigned to nine of them. The final evaluation of the investigation results is still pending. An arrest warrant was issued against one of the suspects, but it was suspended. "The application for further arrest warrants has been refrained from because the requirements for this are not met," said the spokeswoman. In addition to the urgent suspicion of a crime, the legislature provides for a reason for detention, such as the risk of escape or blackout. If one of the two requirements is missing, custody is out of the question.Particularly in the case of young people, the special burdens should also be taken into account.