MEDIA-GERMANY/TREASON Treason inquiry still not over despite suspension of top prosecutor -- Netzpolitik

Record ID: 144941

  • Title: MEDIA-GERMANY/TREASON Treason inquiry still not over despite suspension of top prosecutor -- Netzpolitik
  • Date: 5th August 2015
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (AUGUST 5, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF NETZPOLITIK HEADQUARTERS IN BERLIN SIGN READING "NETZPOLITIK.ORG" INTERIOR OF NETZPOLITIK HEADQUARTERS VARIOUS OF NETZPOLITIK JOURNALIST MARKUS BECKEDAHL WORKING BECKEDAHL TYPING AT WORK HANDS TYPING (SOUNDBITE) (German) NETZPOLITIK JOURNALIST, MARKUS BECKEDAHL, SAYING: "If we look at it closely, then within the German
  • Embargoed: 20th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA44SRGACET67GJO4M8R5Y1UOZY
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Netzpolitik journalist Markus Beckendahl said on Wednesday (August 5) that the treason inquiry posed against his website had not come to an end with the sacking of the top German public prosecutor Harald Range.
    Federal prosecutors have been investigating whether news website Netzpolitik.org revealed state secrets by publishing plans to step up state surveillance of online communications in Germany, a country strongly wedded to press freedom and privacy.
    The German government announced the early retirement of the 67 year-old prosecutor on Tuesday (August 4) after he accused the justice ministry of interfering in a the investigation against the news website, which has been accused of revealing state secrets by publishing plans to step up state surveillance of online communications.
    Beckendahl said that either institutions were "incompetent" or that something "very foul" was going on with the investigation.
    "If we look at it closely, then within the German government nobody is supposed to have known about those investigations that have been running for two and a half months against us journalists, that the most pointed sword that they have to go against journalists is pointed at us. That proves that that they are either incompetent - the interior ministry, the justice ministry and the chancellery - or there is something very foul here," he told Reuters at the website's headquarters.
    "No, the affair isn't over. There are still lots of questions left. Range is a scapegoat. But at the end of the day lots of other people must have known, lots more people must have been behind the decision to start this investigation. So we are not close to clearing it up," he added.
    Privacy is an especially sensitive issue in Germany after the extensive surveillance by Communist East Germany's Stasi secret police and by the Gestapo in the Nazi era.
    Justice Minister Heiko Maas said last week he doubted whether the journalists had intended to harm the state and that it was important to defend press independence, prompting Range to complain on Tuesday of "intolerable" political meddling in the investigation.
    In a rare clash between the state and judiciary, Maas said on Tuesday that he no longer trusted Range after his accusations of political interference and his decision to go public and named Peter Frank as his successor.
    "The statements and actions of the federal prosecutor today cannot be condoned and give the public a false impression. I have told the federal prosecutor Range that my confidence in his ability to perform his office has been destroyed and that therefore, in agreement with the chancellery, we will ask for his early retirement from the German president. As a successor for the position of the federal prosecutor I propose the General State Prosecutor from Munich, Dr Peter Frank," he said.
    Politicians from across the spectrum condemned Maas's decision, though a government spokeswoman said he had the "full support" of Chancellor Angela Merkel on the matter.
    Prosecutors opened the probe against the website after a criminal complaint by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), over articles about it that appeared on the Netzpolitik.org blog on February 25 and April 15.
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