Adrian P. was a child when Markus R. filmed him naked. 'My friends and I saw it as a game. Markus promised us that he wouldn't show anyone the films, and he told us not tell anyone about them. Not even our parents,' says Adrian P., who is now 19.
Back then, he was 14. Sitting next to him in the living room of his parents' home in Racsa, a village in northern Romania, is his father. His mother is chopping onions in the kitchen. 'R. brought shame to my family and our village,' says Gheorghe P. 'If I ever see him again, I will kill him.'
Markus R., from Germany, moved to Transylvania in 2001 to work for a German timber company, according to Romanian media reports. Back home, he had been charged with sexual abuse of children and served a prison sentence. But in Romania, he reinvented himself as a businessman eager to be involved with the community. He gave karate lessons and organized outings for local boys, buying them pizza and lemonade.
Legal Gray Areas
Northern Romania is a poor region. Many children here grow up with absent fathers, who've left to work in Germany or France. 'R. was a substitute father,' recalls a resident. But once he'd gained the trust of local boys, he began to film them -- playing naked in a wading pool in his home.
In 2007, he began selling his videos to the Canadian company Azov Films. The Romanian police investigation into R.'s activities supplied crucial information for Operation Spade, the international police investigation into child pornography begun in October 2010 in Toronto.
Among the information it turned up was Azov Films' customer base, which included one Sebastian Edathy from Germany -- a 44-year-old Social Democrat member of parliament who resigned in early February.
The videos included naked boys from Germany, Romania and Ukraine, which. Police also designated Azov Films as a criminal organization,. Investigators who raided Azov Films in 2011 found hundreds of thousand. Films viewed by police included sequences of naked boys shot in.
In Germany, the Edathy scandal has triggered a nationwide debate about child pornography laws. Although there is a consensus that state and society must condemn and punish the sexual abuse of children in all its guises, there is a gray area between what is morally reprehensible and what is criminal. Investigators make a distinction between child pornography and images of naked children in which their genitalia are not the explicit focus.
Edathy insists that the images he purchased from the Canadian website were legal. The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the Federal Criminal Police Office, has confirmed that his computer has not turned up any explicitly pornographic material thus far, but on the strength of the initial evidence, the Hanover public prosecution is nonetheless investigating Edathy for suspected possession of child pornography.
Furthermore, Justice Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) is now mulling a draft law outlawing the commercial trading of images of naked children.
'I Can't Get It Out of My Head'
In Transylvania, Adrian P. doesn't understand why the debate has become bogged down in legal details. 'The footage of me is terrible,' he says. 'I can't get it out of my head.' His father says Adrian is still traumatized to this day, and was so ashamed that he couldn't leave the house for months. 'He was such a happy child,' says he father. 'Now he's very withdrawn.'
It was a relative of the family who discovered by chance what was going on. Through a hole in a fence, he saw Markus R. filming children playing naked in a swimming pool in the fall of 2008. Upon being confronted, R. fled, only to resume his activities shortly thereafter in the nearby town of Zalau.
Even though the commercial sale of images of children is a global business, it is more often practiced by individuals than organized networks -- unlike the drug trade. The perpetrators tend to be relatives of the victims, or at least familiar, trusted figures.
Markus R.'s nemesis was Dan Puskas, a criminal police officer in Zalau. In 2010, he was informed of R.'s activities by the families of R.'s victims. He placed R. under observation for several weeks and questioned a number of witnesses. R. was eventually arrested by a special squad while attempting to flee to Germany with several children in tow. The squad seized toys, camera equipment and around 200 videos of naked boys play-fighting. 'Anyone who films this sort of material is sick,' says Puskas.
During the raid, the squad came across an address in Canada. Police headquarters in Bucharest informed their colleagues in Toronto, and Operation Spade was soon underway.
R. himself confessed and was sentenced to two years behind bars in Romania. He was released in the summer of 2012 and is thought to be living in Munich today.
12 AM
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
LONDON —
The worldwide release of a new film produced by former Columbia studio boss David Puttnam has been blocked by an Irish court--after a woman complained that her 13-year-old son appeared nude in the production.
An injunction filed in Cork, Ireland, prevents the release of “The War of the Buttons,” due for its world premiere in Dublin on July 29. Much of the filming took place near Skibbereen, on Ireland’s western coast, last year.
Warner Bros., the distributor of the film, will contest the injunction, which prevents the studio from screening, distributing or releasing the $8.5-million film, which had been expected to be released in the United States later this year. Warners spokesman Julian Senior said the film had been seen by two research audiences of parents and children in Britain before the injunction was filed.
Puttnam said he was unable to comment about the injunction for legal reasons.
“The War of the Buttons” was adapted by screenwriter Colin Welland (“Chariots of Fire”) from a French novel, “La Guerre des Boutons,” by Louis Fergaud. The story is about two adjacent towns whose children constantly battle each other; their fights are determined by the number of buttons that can be ripped from opponents’ coats. Eighteen Skibbereen children were given roles in the film.
The scene to which the boy’s mother objected shows a group of boys running down a hillside into battle naked, thus preventing the rival boys from tearing their clothes.
The boy’s attorneys told the court that his parents withdrew him from the production after he took part in the scene, which required 12 takes over two days. After the scene, the court was told, the boy seemed “a bit down.”
Senior said the boys wore “modesty pouches” for the scene. “The boy in question is seen fleetingly from the back,” he added. “I have seen ‘The War of the Buttons’ myself and it is a delightful, funny, charming little film. Anyone who talks about it in terms of the nudity is getting it quite wrong.
“We are now putting together an affidavit to get the injunction lifted on Friday.” It is expected that the judge, Mr. Justice Moran, will see the film himself before making a decision.
“The War of the Buttons” had been scheduled for an October release in Britain, but that depends on the outcome of the court case. “The only people who this will hurt” are those in the Irish film community, Senior added. “The film is suitable for children, and it tested very well with both parents and children at our screenings.”