A young woman abducted and repeatedly assaulted by her former boyfriend and three of his associates was also coerced into having his name tattooed across her abdomen—a mark she described as a permanent symbol of domination.
According to testimony heard in a Hamburg courtroom, the woman—21 at the time—was lured into meeting her ex-partner, a 33-year-old Afghan man identified in local reports as Jaser A., in August 2023. Prosecutors say Jaser held a knife to her throat while three accomplices joined him, overwhelming and kidnapping her.
The group allegedly forced her into a tattoo studio, where she was compelled to have Jaser’s nickname, “Elyas,” inked across her stomach in large cursive script. In court, the woman, now a nurse, said repeated attempts to remove the tattoo had failed: “It’s very deep, very dark. It can’t be removed. It’s essentially a stamp showing where I’m supposed to belong.” Photographs taken in the courthouse hallway show her lifting her clothing to display the large tattoo that spans her torso.
Following the forced tattooing, she was taken back to her home, where she says Jaser kept her captive for a week, assaulting, raping, and filming her while she was gagged and partially unclothed. “He hit, bit, and kicked me repeatedly,” she testified.
The ordeal ended only when she managed to regain access to her phone and alert her parents, prompting a SWAT team to raid the apartment and free her after seven days. “I want to put everything behind me,” she told the court. “I hope time will help. Life has to go on.”
In 2024, the Hamburg Regional Court sentenced Jaser to nine years in prison plus preventive detention on charges including rape, assault, coercion, unlawful imprisonment, and issuing threats. The presiding judge condemned his conduct as “treating the woman like livestock on a Texas ranch—utterly inhumane.” Reports indicate Jaser had a prior history of violent offences.
The judge praised the woman’s resilience at the time of sentencing: “She is a strong personality. She dared to report him. A weaker person would have been destroyed by what she endured—thankfully, she was not.”
The woman is scheduled to return to court in early December for the next hearing specifically related to the forced-tattoo case. Jaser was absent from Wednesday’s session, citing illness.
