Politicians in the sights of the judiciary. Non-public BND details are said to have been pierced: “Betrayal of secrets is not a trivial offense.”
Berlin – The Federal Intelligence Service advises politicians on (military) foreign reconnaissance. Also in the Ukraine war. The BND provides important aspects that help politicians to better assess the war situation. For example, the BND provided information on the war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, where hundreds of tortured civilian corpses were found. What the BND says must be treated confidentially. Apparently, not all politicians followed suit.
Ukraine war: Politics in the sights of the judiciary – investigations into betrayal of secrets
The Berlin public prosecutor’s office is investigating possible secret betrayal in the Defense Committee of the Bundestag. “There are procedures in which the Bundestag administration has approached the public prosecutor. We are checking them,” said a spokeswoman for the authorities at the weekend. She did not provide information on the number of procedures or their content.
There is a suspicion that information classified as secret could have been leaked from the Defense Committee. The news portal The Pioneer reported that Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) had issued a so-called authorization to prosecute in four cases relating to the Defense Committee and in three others relating to other specialist committees of Parliament.
Strack-Zimmermann: “Treasoning a secret is not a trivial offense”
The background is a briefing by the BND on the situation in the escalated Ukraine conflict. In several media reports, content was then made public that was a topic in particular in the non-public or secret meeting of the Defense Committee. Specifically, it was about intercepted radio messages from the Russian military, which prove atrocities committed against the Ukrainian civilian population.
It is assumed that information classified as secret could have escaped from the session. More than 60 politicians and government officials attended the meeting in early April. According to the report of The Pioneer the committee chairwoman Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP) reported the cases first. “New and old members of parliament must understand that betrayal of secrets is not a trivial offense and the penalties associated with betrayal of secrets are not paper tigers, but can lead to real consequences,” she told the news portal.
Federal intelligence service: CDU and FDP demand public situation reports from the BND
There are currently discussions as to whether the BND should make its assessments of the situation public per se. So the secrecy would be shelved. FDP politician Konstantin Kuhle calls in June t-online:“If there really is to be a turning point in German security policy after the escalation of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, then this also requires a more informed public debate on security policy issues.” Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU), like Kuhle a member of the parliamentary body responsible for monitoring the secret services, made a similar statement.
The intelligence services discussion group brought the proposal into play. The association advocates establishing a medium for the BND that is comparable to the constitutional protection report. In this way, global threats and risk factors can be pointed out without touching on foreign policy interests or confidentiality concerns that are worthy of protection. (as/dpa)
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