The mayor of Cologne has said that most of the suspects of the New Year’s Eve attacks in the city are unlikely ever to be convicted, as a court issued the first verdicts.
A 23-year-old Moroccan was found guilty of petty theft in a Cologne court on Wednesday morning.
The man, known as Younes A, had stolen a woman’s smartphone outside the central train station while she was taking photographs of Cologne’s main cathedral on 31 December. He was caught by police on the spot and has been in custody since the start of the year.
Younes A has applied for asylum in Germany but did not name the reasons for his application in court. He was handed a six-month suspended sentence and a €100 (£79) fine.
The 20-year-old victim was one of more than 1,000 women who have filed complaints, including some of sexual assaults, in the weeks after the new year celebration. In court, she said her bottom had been groped while she was walking through the main station, but she was unable to show whether the person who groped her was the same person who stole her phone.
Two other men were due to appear in court on Wednesday charged with robbery in the first criminal cases brought over events on New Year’s Eve. The two men are alleged to have stolen a camera from a man.
Police are investigating 59 suspects in connection with the attacks. Prosecutors say that among the suspects are 25 Algerians, 21 Moroccans, three Tunisians, three Germans, two Syrians, one Iraqi, one Libyan, one Iranian and one man from Montenegro. They include minors and teenagers, as well as asylum seekers and people who have arrived illegally in the country.
The city’s chief of police, Jürgen Mathies, also told the BBC on Wednesday that many of the perpetrators may never be caught.
