The Berlin public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into the band’s singer Rammstein, Till Lindemann, and the self-appointed “Casting Director” Alena M. hired. The proceedings against Lindemann were conducted on suspicion of committing sexual offenses as well as violations of the Narcotics Act after reports had been made against him and M. by uninvolved third parties.
According to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office, the investigations “did not provide any evidence that the accused had engaged in sexual activity with women against their will, administered substances that influence or disable their will, or exploited a power imbalance towards underage sexual partners to persuade them to have sex.” There are no criminally relevant indications of violations of the Narcotics Act. “There were no indications of criminally relevant behavior” against Alena M.
However, the investigators did not have any suspected victims as witnesses, so according to the Attorney General’s Office, they had to limit themselves primarily to press reports and the interviews of other witnesses, including YouTuber Kayla Shyx, when evaluating the evidence.
The SZ and other media had reported that Till Lindemann, with the help of Alena M. and other people, was given young women as part of a so-called casting system for pre- and after-parties at concerts, some of which also had sex with him . Two women, who wanted to remain anonymous in public for their protection, told the SZ that they had subsequently experienced the encounters as abusive or violent. Their identities are known to the SZ, they have given their information under oath.
The magazine The mirror had also made public a sexual relationship between Till Lindemann and a 15-year-old woman, who, according to the public prosecutor’s office, had been accused of sexually abusing young people. These could therefore not be substantiated, since the woman did not reveal her identity and could not be heard.
“There was therefore no possibility of sufficiently concretizing any allegations, nor of gaining an impression of the credibility of the alleged victims and the credibility of their statements during interrogations,” writes the press spokesman for the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office, Sebastian Büchner, in the press release. According to Büchner, YouTuber Kayla Shyx, who had reported on her experiences at an afterparty in a video, “was not able to describe her own experience of criminally relevant incidents” in her witness hearing.
Lindemann’s criminal defense lawyer Björn Gercke saw the termination of the proceedings against the Rammstein singer as evidence that “the investigations by the public prosecutor’s office have not revealed any evidence or indications to be able to accuse my client of committing sexual offences”.
Till Lindemann commented on the allegations for the first time: “I would like to thank everyone who waited impartially for the investigation to end,” he wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.
The public prosecutor’s office can resume investigations at any time as a result of new evidence up to the statute of limitations.