Arrested in Cologne: Carnival, the Rhine and the cathedral

Who this page is written for

Carnival accounts for most of the people reading this, and their situations repeat every year. The first is a visitor who came for the week. In a crowd, in costume, after a long night, an accusation was made: a push that became an assault allegation, a wallet that went missing, a complaint of unwanted contact. He was identified by someone who saw a costume rather than a face, and he is now in a police station where he cannot follow what is being said.

The second is the friend who is still free. The group has scattered, nobody knows which station the person was taken to, and the coach or the train home leaves in the morning. What that friend does in the next hours — collecting names, photographs and the exact place — is usually more useful than anything done later.

The third did not come for Carnival at all. The city has a working port, a river and a large media and advertising economy, and the cases arising from those are ordinary business matters: freight, customs, contracts and financial allegations, which arrive by letter rather than in a crowd.

Behind all of them sits a relative in Italy, trying to work out from a broken phone call whether to drive through the night or wait for the morning.

Choices in the first hours of a Carnival case

The pressure during Carnival is unusual: stations are busy, everybody is tired, and the system is working at volume. The first choice is whether to give an account. In a crowd case the instinct is to explain that it was chaotic, that everyone was drinking, that you may have bumped into somebody. Every one of those sentences concedes contact and places you where the complainant says you were. Declining to give an account until a lawyer and an interpreter are present preserves the one defence these cases most often have, which is that the identification does not hold.

The second is whether to agree to a quick disposal in order to travel home with the group. It is offered, it is tempting, and it is taken in the worst conditions. What it leaves behind, in Germany, in Italy and at future borders, is rarely explained in the room.

The third belongs to the people still outside. Whether to stay in the city for a day to secure photographs, witnesses and the exact location, or to go home and deal with it from Italy. Leaving is cheaper now and far more expensive later, because the material that answers a costume identification exists for a few days only.

What to collect while the night is still recoverable

Identification is the weak point in most Carnival files, and identification is answered with images and with names.

• Every document handed over, photographed page by page in German, including the envelope and the date, since the obligations and the next step are written only there.
• Photographs of the costume, including what you were wearing, how many people around you were dressed identically, and where it was bought.
• Your own photographs and video from the night, untouched, with original timestamps, and the same material from everyone you were with before their phones are cleared.
• Card payments and receipts from bars, food stands and transport, which fix where you were through the evening.
• The names and contact details of everyone in the group, and of anyone who spoke to you, taken immediately; Carnival crowds disperse and are never reassembled.
• The exact location, the street, the bar, the square, recorded while you still remember it, because a complaint describes a place and distances matter.
• Medical records of any injury to you, and a note of how much you had drunk, honestly.
• The seizure receipt for anything taken, including a phone or clothing.

How the arrest reaches the trip, the job and the family

A Carnival case damages the week first and then everything else. A retained passport or an obligation to remain available means the return journey is abandoned, the hotel is extended during the most expensive days of the city's year, and an employer in Italy receives an explanation that raises more questions than it answers. Travelling companions go home, which leaves the person alone in a city working at full capacity.

Afterwards the effects depend on the allegation. Accusations of a sexual nature, which this week reliably produces, are treated seriously from the first hour and reach reputation long before they reach a court; people lose work, volunteer positions and sometimes relationships on the existence of the allegation. Theft accusations affect anyone whose work requires a record check. For non-European nationals living in Italy, an open German file complicates every renewal and every re-entry.

The money is not trivial: returning for a hearing means flights, leave and accommodation, repeated for each step, and translation of documents is paid for in advance.

At home the social cost arrives through the group. Everyone who travelled knows, versions circulate among people who were drunk at the time, and the person concerned ends up correcting a story in the pub long before correcting anything in a court. Families divide on whether anything should be said at work.

Questions to ask after an arrest in a crowd

The useful questions are about identification and process, not about penalties:

1. What exactly am I accused of doing, and who says they saw it?
2. How was I identified, and was anybody else in the same costume nearby?
3. Does the file rely on footage, and may I see it before it is overwritten?
4. Was an interpreter present when I spoke, and does the record show that?
5. Has a complaint been formally registered, and can it be withdrawn?
6. Am I free to leave Germany, and what obligations continue once I have left?
7. What has been seized, including clothing and my phone, and how is it recovered?
8. Can I be represented at later steps without returning for each one?
9. If a disposal is offered, what does it leave on record here and in Italy?
10. For an allegation of a sexual nature, what happens to my name and to any publicity?

Behaviour that makes a Carnival case worse

The errors are consistent year after year, and they are nearly all committed within a day of the arrest.

• Do not post about the night and do not let friends tag you. Carnival photographs circulate widely and the complainant's friends are looking for them.
• Do not delete your own pictures or messages. They are usually what shows where you were and who you were with; their disappearance is read as significant.
• Do not contact the complainant, to apologise, to explain or to offer money. In an allegation of unwanted contact this converts the matter into something far heavier.
• Do not agree a version with the group. Accounts that match perfectly after a chaotic night are the easiest thing in the file to attack.
• Do not sign a German document you have not had translated, however badly you want to catch the train.
• Do not throw away the costume or the clothes; they may be exactly what distinguishes you from the person described.
• Do not assume silence means the end. The letter that carries a deadline arrives weeks after Carnival is over.

A case in Germany while living in Italy

Running this from Italy raises the same practical issues every time. Post goes to the address the police were given at the station, which during Carnival is frequently a hotel the person left the next morning, and documents treated as delivered there start a period running that nobody is watching. Giving a reliable address, and arranging for someone to open the post, is the single most effective thing a visitor can do before leaving.

Language shapes the rest. The German paperwork states its requirement in one line surrounded by standard text, and a family translating it on a phone usually extracts the wrong part. Supporting material from Italy, employment records, a clean record extract, medical documents, needs translation and sometimes certification, which takes weeks and must be commissioned early.

Travel is manageable: the city is well connected from Italy, so attendance is possible when the date is known in time, and relatives can visit without the journey consuming days. That is an advantage only if notification is working.

Consular assistance is limited to informing the family and naming local lawyers; it does not include representation or funding. The structure that works is a defence lawyer admitted in Germany running the local proceedings and an Italian lawyer handling the family, the translations and the consequences at home, with a single calendar covering both countries and one person responsible for it.

How instruction is taken after a Carnival arrest

The mandate comes first and may be signed abroad and returned electronically. Until it exists the studio cannot request documents, speak to the police or receive anything on your behalf. Where the person is still held, a friend or relative can begin the process and the instruction is confirmed as soon as contact is possible, which during Carnival may take longer than usual because of the volume.

What to send before the first call: all the German paperwork photographed in full; the seizure receipt; identity documents; the photographs and video from the night, unedited; the list of people who were with you and their contact details; and a written account by the person concerned, in their own words, written before speaking to the rest of the group about it.

The first conversation establishes what has been alleged, how the identification was made, whether anything has been said on record, whether travel is restricted and which date comes next. Where material held by third parties is likely to be overwritten, requests for it are the first thing done rather than the last.

Work is in Italian, English, Spanish and French, with interpreters for other languages. Offices are in Roma, Milano and Napoli, and arrests during the Carnival weeks are dealt with at any hour, including nights and holidays, because that is when they happen.

The words on the paperwork from this city

A small vocabulary covers most of what arrives.

• Identification is the central concept in a Carnival file: the process by which a complainant or an officer connects an allegation to a particular person in a crowd.
• Complaint is the formal step by which a private person starts the matter; whether it can be withdrawn depends on what is alleged.
• Public order proceedings covers cases arising from crowds, where the conduct described is physical rather than planned.
• Seizure is the retention of property, which during Carnival often includes clothing as well as a phone, and each item is returned only on application.
• Disposal is the quick resolution offered to people who want to go home; it is a decision with consequences, not an administrative step.
• European Arrest Warrant is a request between member states for surrender of a person, concerned with handover rather than guilt.
• Extradition is the procedure used outside that framework, with a final decision that is not taken by a court.
• Red Notice is an international police alert that circulates between forces and surfaces at borders years afterwards.