Were the German courts too soft on Chinese members of drug rape network?

The sentencing of four men to up to 14 years in jail has highlighted a very different approach to justice compared with China

Minutes after a Berlin court sentenced a Chinese man to five years in prison for aiding and abetting aggravated rape and sexual coercion, two women who had sat through the trial hugged each other and cried.

But the case left one of those women, named Kristina, balancing mixed emotions as she struggled to reconcile her desire to see the perpetrators punished and questions about what justice really meant in a case of this nature.

The 32-year-old, who was studying medicine, was jailed for five years earlier this month.

Kristina, who is studying in the German capital, was one of the many Chinese women who spent months sitting through the court’s hearings, some of whom have criticised these sentences as too lenient.

She, like other observers, had a complicated reaction to the case – one shaped by anger towards the perpetrators, desire for justice and the challenge of understanding a legal system with a different approach to punishment compared with China.