18 September 2009 / ,
A court in Turkey has given a suspended sentence to a German teenager accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl. Marco Weiss was 17 when he was accused of abusing a British teenager he met while on holiday at the resort of Side.
Spending eight months detained in a Turkish jail, he was released on bail in December 2007 and returned home. Weiss has always denied ever having sexual relations with the girl. He was not present in Turkey for Wednesday's proceedings. Following the judgment Weiss will remain free in Germany, but he could return to prison if he commits a crime in Turkey within the next five years. The Turkish authorities say they will monitor Weiss's conduct for the next two-and-a-half years. He claims the British teenager had told him she was 15-years-old at the time in April 2007, which is the legal age of consent in Turkey. Weiss says he only ever engaged in kissing with the girl, who was on holiday with her family in the Turkish resort town of Side, as were Weiss's family.
