(1) The limitation period shall be stayed

1.  until the victim of an offence under sections 174 to 174c, 176 to 179, 225 and 226a has reached the age of twenty-one,

2.  as long as the prosecution may, according to the law, not be commenced or continued; this shall not apply if the act may not be prosecuted only because of the absence of a request or authorisation to prosecute or a request to prosecute by a foreign state.

(2) If a prosecution is not feasible because the offender is a member of the Federal Parliament or a legislative body of a state, the stay of the limitation period shall only commence upon expiry of the day on which

1.  the public prosecutor or a public authority or a police officer acquires knowledge of the offence and the identity of the offender; or

2.  a criminal complaint or a request to prosecute is filed against the offender (section 158 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).

(3) If a judgment has been delivered in the proceedings at first instance before the expiry of the limitation period, the limitation period shall not expire before the time the proceedings have been finally concluded.

(4) If the Special Part provides for a sentence of imprisonment of more than five years in aggravated cases and if the trial proceedings have been instituted in the District Court, the statute of limitations shall be stayed in cases under section 78 (3) No 4 from the admission of the indictment by the trial court, but no longer than for five years; subsection (3) above remains unaffected.

(5) If the offender resides in a country abroad and if the competent authority makes a formal request for extradition to that state, the limitation period is stayed from the time the request is served on the foreign state,

1.  until the surrender of the offender to the German authorities,

2.  until the offender otherwise leaves the territory of the foreign state,

3.  until the denial of the request by the foreign state is served on the German authorities or

4.  until the withdrawal of the request.

If the date of the service of the request upon the foreign state cannot be ascertained, the request shall be deemed to have been served one month after having been sent to the foreign state unless the requesting authority acquires knowledge of the fact that the request was in fact not served on the foreign state or only later. The 1st sentence of this subsection shall not apply to requests for surrender for which, in the requested state, a limitation period similar to section 83c of the Law on International Assistance in Criminal Matters exists, either based on the Framework Decision of the Council of 13 June 2002 on the European Arrest Warrant and the surrender agreements between the member states (OJ L 190, 18.7.2002, p 1), or based on an international treaty.