A 21-year-old man, identified as Shahriar J, has begun trial in Hamburg, Germany, facing charges related to online offenses against more than 30 children and teenagers between the ages of 11 and 15.
Shahriar J, who holds both German and Iranian nationality, was arrested in Hamburg last summer. He is alleged to have committed 204 offenses between 2021 and 2023, using the pseudonym "White Tiger" and being associated with an international cyber-criminal group known as "764."
Prosecutors accuse Shahriar J of making vulnerable children emotionally dependent through social media, then exploiting this bond to create child pornography. The charges include one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder, where he is described as an "indirect perpetrator."
Victims reportedly hail from Germany, the UK, Canada, and the US. One alleged victim, a 13-year-old boy from the US, is reported to have died by suicide online, while a 14-year-old Canadian girl is said to have attempted suicide.
According to the charge sheet, children allegedly seriously injured themselves or performed sexual acts in live chats to comply with demands for increasingly violent content. The defendant is accused of recording these acts and threatening to publish them if the children did not inflict further self-harm.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has characterized the "764" group as an international child exploitation enterprise and a "network of nihilistic violent extremists."
Due to some of the alleged offenses occurring when Shahriar J was a teenager, the trial is being conducted behind closed doors.
His defense lawyer, Christiane Yüksel, has rejected the allegations as baseless and fabricated, describing the prosecution's claim of double indirect perpetration in the murder charge as "experimental" and factually incorrect.