Berlin: An Indian-origin former German lawmaker will appear before a court today to face trial on charges of acquiring and possessing child pornography. Sebastian Edathy, a former candidate for a ministerial post in chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative- social democrat coalition government, is accused of downloading child pornography photos and videos on seven occasions in November, 2013 using his official laptop of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.
The state prosecutor’s office in Hannover, which filed a case against him at the regional court in Verden, also alleged that he was in possession of an illustrated book and a CD containing child pornography material. The court in the state of Lower Saxony said in a pressstatement that it has set nine days for the hearing, which will last until April 27 and invited eight witnesses and eight experts to give their evidence.
Edathy, 45, a former home affairs spokesman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), could face up to two years in jail or a fine, if found guilty. Since the child pornography charges were levelled against him in February, last year, Edathy repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
He admitted that he had downloaded naked photos and videos of under-aged children, but insisted that he did not violate the rules as those material were not classified as child pornography under the German law. In his first public appearance since February, Edathy told a news conference in Berlin in December that it was a “mistake” to order those photos and videos and he very much regretted doing so, but maintained that “it was legal”.
However, prosecutors argued that the photos and videos acquired by Edathy also contained material showing children in explicit sexual scenes and therefore they are illegal and liable for punishment. In the aftermath of the allegations against Edathy, the Bundestag last week passed a new legislation to tighten the country’s laws concerning child pornography by banning the use of photos and videos of naked children for commercial purposes, eliminating the grey areas in the classification of such material and by increasing the punishment for those involved in the production and marketing of child pornography.
