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Hamburg prosecutors have received more reports from worried parents after the arrest of a 20-year-old German-Iranian man accused of luring children into suicide through an international online network, as confirmed by officials.
The prosecutor’s office is currently investigating potential additional victims linked to Shahriar J, who used the online alias “White Tiger” and was arrested in mid-June at his parents’ home in Hamburg’s affluent Marienthal area.
Hamburg Public Prosecutor General Jörg Fröhlich stated that the suspect, a former medical student, is charged with 123 offences allegedly committed between 2021 and 2023, which include murder, attempted murder, child abuse, and rape.
The arrest was triggered by an FBI tip concerning child pornography, leading to the discovery of 85,000 files, over 600 videos, and extensive chat records referencing child torture. The accused is being held in strict security at a youth prison on the Hahnöfersand peninsula.
Police suspect that the defendant may have led the international child torture network “764,” classified as a terrorist organization in the US, which allegedly forced children and young people to self-harm for sexual purposes, with victims from Germany, the UK, the US, and Canada.
Prosecutors claim that the defendant induced a 13-year-old US citizen to suicide in January 2022 using a Finnish minor as an intermediary, by manipulating the Finnish girl with a “perverse mix of love and contempt” to self-harm and contact boys in the US in 2022.
The Finnish minor is said to have met the 13-year-old victim on an online suicide forum in mid-January 2022. Prosecutors allege that the defendant joined an Instagram group chat and pushed the boy to suicide, sharing the recorded act on an online network for sadistic content.
“The offenses are beyond human imagination,” said Fröhlich.
The case presents legal complexities since suicide and assisted suicide are not punishable under German law. Prosecutors need to prove “murder in indirect perpetration,” indicating the defendant committed a crime through another person, being the main instigator.
Legal experts emphasize that the prosecution must establish that the victim lacked free will for the act to be considered murder rather than assisted suicide.
Additional sources: AP
