A German woman, Claudia Wuttke, discovered videos of her ex-partner drugging and raping her over a period of 16 years. Most of these alleged crimes will not face prosecution due to Germany’s five-year statute of limitations, leaving only two cases to pursue. Wuttke expressed sadness that the majority of alleged violations remained unpunished.
A German woman has accused her former partner of drugging and raping her over several years in acts that were allegedly filmed. Most of the alleged crimes are unlikely to face prosecution due to Germany’s statute of limitations, AFP reported, citing a Der Spiegel report.The woman, identified as 59-year-old Claudia Wuttke from Hamburg, told the German weekly newspaper that police contacted her in June 2025 after discovering videos of the alleged abuse on a laptop.According to the report, investigators found 67 videos allegedly recorded over a 16-year period showing Wuttke being orally, vaginally and anally assaulted while allegedly unconscious. In one alleged incident, she was reportedly assaulted with a baseball bat.Wuttke told Der Spiegel magazine that the discovery of the videos was “the first earthquake” and said she “didn’t know anything about” the alleged abuse beforehand.The report compared the case of Giselle Bellico in France, who became internationally known after she revealed that she had been drugged by her ex-husband without her knowledge and raped by dozens of men over several years.Foettke said she experienced a “second earthquake” after learning that German authorities had dropped investigations into 65 out of 67 alleged cases due to legal time limits.
Under German law, most rape cases are subject to a five-year statute of limitations. As a result, prosecutors are said to be pursuing only two cases — one dating back to 2021 and the other involving the alleged use of a “dangerous instrument” in “exceptional circumstances.”“It is simply unacceptable that the vast majority of what happened to me should go unpunished,” Watke told the magazine.“No one knew about these rapes, nor that these videos existed, so how could anyone do anything about it?” she said.Der Spiegel reported that preliminary hearings in the remaining two cases are expected to be held soon. The prosecutor’s office and the lawyer representing Wuttke did not immediately respond to AFP’s inquiries, while her former partner’s lawyer declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.