A major cover-up was allegedly staged in Germany to cover the crime of illegal aliens and miscreants who abused and harassed the legal residents of the country early this year. This allegation was supported by the complete silence from officials.
As rumors spread about the gravity of the situation on social media, police appeared to have been instructed to keep their mouth shut and not talk about allegations of mass sexual assaults and other crimes carried out on New Year's Eve in the German city of Cologne.
It was only days later that officials reported that hundreds of women were victims of assault in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities.
But numbers that are now emerging are likely to shock a country still coming to terms with what happened in Cologne more than half a year ago. According to a leaked police document, published by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR, the previous estimates have to be dramatically revised — upward.
Some authorities now think that on New Year's Eve, more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted in various German cities, including more than 600 in Cologne and about 400 in Hamburg.
More than 2,000 men were allegedly involved, and 120 suspects — many of them foreign nationals — have been identified.
Only four have been convicted, but more trials are underway.
Last 7 July, a court in Cologne sentenced two men in the New Year's Eve assaults. Hussein A., a 21-year-old Iraqi, and Hassan T., a 26-year-old Algerian, were handed suspended one-year sentences. Both arrived in Germany in the past two years, a court spokesman said. He declined to specify whether the two had sought asylum.
Officials have linked the sexual assaults to the influx of refugees. "There is a connection between the emergence of this phenomenon and the rapid migration in 2015," Holger Münch, president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
As rumors spread about the gravity of the situation on social media, police appeared to have been instructed to keep their mouth shut and not talk about allegations of mass sexual assaults and other crimes carried out on New Year's Eve in the German city of Cologne.
It was only days later that officials reported that hundreds of women were victims of assault in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities.
But numbers that are now emerging are likely to shock a country still coming to terms with what happened in Cologne more than half a year ago. According to a leaked police document, published by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR, the previous estimates have to be dramatically revised — upward.
Some authorities now think that on New Year's Eve, more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted in various German cities, including more than 600 in Cologne and about 400 in Hamburg.
More than 2,000 men were allegedly involved, and 120 suspects — many of them foreign nationals — have been identified.
Only four have been convicted, but more trials are underway.
Last 7 July, a court in Cologne sentenced two men in the New Year's Eve assaults. Hussein A., a 21-year-old Iraqi, and Hassan T., a 26-year-old Algerian, were handed suspended one-year sentences. Both arrived in Germany in the past two years, a court spokesman said. He declined to specify whether the two had sought asylum.
Officials have linked the sexual assaults to the influx of refugees. "There is a connection between the emergence of this phenomenon and the rapid migration in 2015," Holger Münch, president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.