Of
Martin Bernstein
A 12-year-old was lured by a man to the Old Botanical Garden in downtown Munich on Tuesday morning on her way to school and sexually abused there. The incident happened around 7.40 a.m. in the park between the Luisengymnasium and the Palace of Justice. The perpetrator is said to have worn a surgical mask.
According to the investigation so far, the girl was on her way to her school from the main train station. The child was approached at a bus stop by an unknown man. Under a pretext, he was able to get the girl to accompany him to the Old Botanical Garden. There he touched the twelve-year-old “probably with a sexual background,” as a police spokesman put it. When another child appeared nearby, the man let go of the student and quickly walked away in the direction of Karlsplatz.
The twelve-year-old then went to her school, from where the police were immediately notified. An immediate police search did not lead to the arrest of the perpetrator. Undercover investigators are still in action. At the nearby Luisengymnasium, schoolchildren were informed and warned with a loudspeaker announcement on Tuesday.
The investigations were taken over by Commissariat 17 of the Munich Police Headquarters. The experts deal with cases of sexualized violence against children. They are currently trying to reconstruct the exact sequence of events on Tuesday. An exact description of the perpetrator was initially not possible because of the mask that the man wore. The police left open which lies the man used to lure the child into the Old Botanical Garden – as well as whether there was a connection with the alleged addressing of children in the same area by an unknown person.