At least nine women attending a party of the German Social Democratic Party, attended by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, were drugged with so-called “rape drugs”, the SPD told AFP on Saturday.
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“The excitement is quite great,” a spokesperson for the Social Democratic parliamentary group told AFP, confirming information from the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel.
Berlin police say they are investigating serious bodily harm after a 21-year-old woman filed a complaint against X.
“I advise all those concerned to file a complaint,” also wrote on Twitter an official of the parliamentary group, Katja Mast.
Nine victims have so far been listed, but the spokesperson for the parliamentary group did not rule out that there are more.
In an e-mail addressed to the participants in this summer party which was held on Wednesday near the chancellery, the SPD denounced “a monstrous act which was immediately reported by us to the police of the Bundestag”.
About a thousand people took part in the traditional party of the SPD before the summer parliamentary break, including the Chancellor, a member of this formation, but also many deputies and their collaborators.
“It was an internal event. You could only enter by invitation, ”said the spokesperson. “There are still a lot of uncertainties, the police are investigating”.
In a press release, the Berlin police, which only mentions a “summer party of a political party”, explained that they had been alerted by a 21-year-old young woman who, the day after the event, no longer had any memory of the evening.
She then went to the hospital for a medical examination and filed a complaint.
During the party, the young woman, who had consumed food and non-alcoholic drinks, had felt bad with nausea and dizziness in particular.
Police said they have been informed of four other cases so far.
“Date rape drugs”, which generally cause nausea and dizziness, refer to different mind-altering substances usually poured into people’s drinks and then abused by violence, theft or sexual assault.
In 2021, in Berlin, a city of celebration and sometimes excess, 22 cases of assault with “rape drugs” were recorded by the police, according to the daily Berliner Zeitung.
Their actual number, however, should be much higher, with many victims having very little memory of their attack or feeling ashamed to file a complaint.
In addition last year, clubs, discos and other places of festivities in the capital remained closed for a large part of the year due to the pandemic.