A German woman has accused her ex-partner of drugging and raping her for years in sex abuse acts he filmed, with most alleged crimes likely to go untried due to a statute of limitations.
BERLIN: A German woman has accused her ex-partner of drugging and raping her for years in sex abuse acts he filmed, Der Spiegel reported Friday, adding that most of the alleged crimes may never go to trial.
The woman, Claudia Wuttke, told the news weekly that after learning about the alleged abuse, she was shaken by “a second earthquake” when she was told that most of the crimes would go unpunished because of a five-year statue of limitations.
Der Spiegel pointed to parallels with the French case of Gisele Pelicot, who for years was unknowingly drugged by her ex-husband and raped by dozens of men, then won global admiration for her unsparing public testimony and bravery.
In the German case, 59-year-old Wuttke, an author from the northern city of Hamburg, told the magazine that she only learned of the alleged crimes from police who had discovered videos of the sex abuse on a laptop and contacted her in June 2025.
A total of 67 videos had been found, allegedly filmed over a 16-year period and showing Wuttke being subjected to oral, vaginal and anal penetration, the weekly wrote.
In an especially shocking case, she was allegedly abused with a baseball bat that was inserted anally.
“It was the first earthquake,” Wuttke, who is also a literary agent, told Der Spiegel, adding that she had “known nothing about” the abuse beforehand.
Since the most recent video was from 2021, there remained no other physical evidence that might prove the drugging or sexual violence.
Wuttke told Der Spiegel that she was shaken again when she learned last November that authorities had dropped investigations into 65 of the 67 cases.
The reason was that under German law, most rape cases are subject to a five-year statute of limitations.
Only two cases could be pursued: one from 2021; the other for the alleged baseball bat rape because it involved the use of a “dangerous instrument” and was committed “in exceptional circumstances”.
“It’s simply unacceptable that the vast majority of what was done to me should go unpunished,” Wuttke told the German weekly.
“No one knew about these rapes, nor about the existence of these videos; how could anyone have done anything about it?”
Initial court hearings in the two cases that are being pursued by prosecutors are expected to take place soon, according to Der Spiegel.
The public prosecutor’s office handling the case, as well as the lawyer for the victim, did not immediately reply to messages from AFP.
Der Spiegel said that the lawyer for Wuttke’s ex-partner, who was not named, declined to comment citing client confidentiality.
