A refugee worker in charge of the eight Iraqis who gang-raped a German woman in Austria has blamed the victim for the horrifying attack.
A family of eight Iraqi asylum-seekers were convicted and jailed over the rape in Vienna on New Year’s Eve 2015.
The Iraqis found the 28-year-old woman, identified only as Sabine K, in a bar and took her back to an apartment where they raped her.
The refugee aid worker, who has not been named, was supposedly helping the Iraqis integrate into Austrian society. Interviewed by Austrian media on camera, he said the men’s sentences were too high.
But off camera the man – who works as a refugee guardian – went further and said the woman was to blame for giving ‘false signals’ to the group said the excessive alcohol consumption on all sides should have counted as mitigation.
At the opening of the trial in February the court heard how she was ‘blind drunk’ when she went with the men to an apartment.
But prosecutors claimed she had been drugged.
Only one man, Mohamed Al-A, 31, admitted his role in the rapes and he sobbed in court as he said he was ‘really drunk’ on vodka at the time.
His Muslim faith may forbid him to drink alcoholic beverages, but on New Year’s Eve he said he made an exception and drank vodka. ‘I was really drunk,’ he said, and he further admitted; ‘this act is a crime in Iraq.’
Sabine was heavily traumatised by the incident and had to quit her job. She has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and depression.
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