Berlin: An Algerian man has been indicted for allegedly participating in a sexual assault on New Year's Eve in Cologne, the first person charged over a sexual offense in events that heightened tensions over Germany's migrant influx.
Cologne regional court spokesman Volker Koehler said Wednesday that the 26-year-old man was charged with sexual assault and theft. He's accused of being in a group of around 10 men who surrounded and groped a woman in the central train station, and of stealing her cellphone.
No trial date has been set. The man's name wasn't given because of German privacy laws.
More than 1,000 criminal complaints were filed over the crimes in Cologne, blamed largely on foreigners, and several hundred of those alleged sexual crimes. Three suspects already have been convicted of theft.
