Children for torture

“I love children. I just wanted to see what it would be like to lure someone. On T-Online, you realise there are some weird people about. It’s captivating,” Pohl-Jovanovic told the court.

Her lawyer claimed that Pohl-Jovanovic, who works as a shop assistant, had become addicted to the Internet but never intended to put her fantasies about children into practice.

A journalist contacted the couple, posing as a potential customer, when he saw their offer to provide a girl between 12 and 14 “to be tortured to death”. The price was DM15,000 “inclusive of disposing of the corpse”. The dead child was to be placed in a plastic rubbish bag and left outside the customer’s front door for collection.

The journalist informed the police, who placed the couple under observation before arresting them. They found a torture chamber in the cellar of the couple’s home but there was no evidence of child abuse.

Germany has been energetic in efforts to regulate the Internet and has taken tough action against Internet service providers who allow access to obscene material. The service providers argue that they are unable to control what people say to each other on the Internet or to stop the exchange of pornographic images.

There is a busy sado-masochistic scene in most big German cities but organised groups stress the importance of consent and safety in all sexual activity and that it must be confined to adults.

Malitzki said on Thursday that he was a practising sado-masochist and that he made contact with other enthusiasts through newspaper advertisements and on the Internet. “I am not a paedophile. I am someone who likes to be decent,” he said.

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