False Report Over Migrant Rape

A 13-year-old Russian-German girl has admitted making up a story about being kidnapped and raped by migrants in a case that triggered an uproar in Germany and briefly embroiled Berlin police in a spat with the Kremlin, state prosecutors said.

The parents of the teenager, named only as Lisa, reported her missing on January 11 after she failed to appear at school.  She reappeared 30 hours later with injuries on her face, and told her parents she had been attacked by men of Middle Eastern or north African appearance. News of the incident spread on social media, sparking outrage among Berlin’s Russian-German community.

But when she was questioned by trained specialists three days later “she immediately admitted that the story of the rape was not true”, said the spokesman for the state prosecutor, Martin Steltner.  He said the teenager had been scared of going home after the school had contacted her parents over unnamed problems.  Further analysis of the teenager’s mobile phone records showed she had spent the night with a friend, who is not being treated as a suspect.