Online predator ‘White Tiger’ on trial in Germany over crimes against children
Shahriar J is accused of driving a trans teen in the US to suicide, and of encouraging kids to make porn that he then used to exploit them
A German juvenile court started the so-called “White Tiger” trial on Friday in which a man is accused of multiple sadistic online crimes including coercing a 13-year-old to take his own life.
The 21-year-old German-Iranian defendant was attacked on Thursday by other detainees shouting “White Tiger” while he was being transferred for the trial, his lawyer Christiane Yueksel told reporters outside the courtroom in Hamburg.
The defendant has been only partially identified as Shahriar J, in line with German privacy rules.
The case shines a spotlight on the dark world of sadistic online exploitation, where predators seek out vulnerable youths and manipulate them to commit acts of self-harm, violence against themselves or animals, or to kill themselves.
Shahriar J. is accused of having driven a 13-year-old transgender youth living near the US city of Seattle to suicide in January 2022, which the youth live-streamed.
The accused, a student operating from his parental home in a wealthy Hamburg suburb, allegedly used the pseudonym “White Tiger” as part of an online network of abusers known as “764”.