Wiretapping affair from Stammheim
The Stammheim wiretapping in 1975 and 1976 were unconstitutional wiretapping operations in the Stuttgart penal institution to monitor conversations between defense lawyers and prisoners of the Red Army Faction (RAF). Manfred Schüler ( SPD ), head of the Federal Chancellery at the time , had approved the installation of the relevant systems by the Federal Intelligence Service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . The Baden-Württemberg ministers Traugott Bender (Justice, CDU ) and Karl Schiess (Interior, CDU) admitted the wiretapping measures to the public on March 17, 1977. The then Federal Minister of the Interior Werner Maihofer ( FDP ) said that he was only inaugurated into the action in March 1977 after the Traube bugging affair became known .
Illegal measures of criminal prevention
After the kidnapping of the politician Peter Lorenz (CDU), technicians from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, on behalf of the Baden-Württemberg State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, installed microphones in five cells of the high-security wing of the Stuttgart-Stammheim correctional facility between March 1 and 3, 1975. After the hostage-taking in Stockholm , additional listening devices were installed in "two unoccupied cells" by employees of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The administrative assistance of the BND approved Manfred Schüler , the head of the Federal Chancellery.
The cause of the wiretapping was the urgent suspicion that the arrested RAF members could control hostage-taking and acts of violence from inside the prison. The wiretapping was a violation of the law and the constitution. It was justified with a "supra-legal emergency".
Traugott Bender explained that eavesdropping devices had been used for the first time because of the hostage-taking of Stockholm on April 24, 1975 in order to uncover criminal defense attorneys who might have been involved in attacks. At that time, however, the fact that the devices had already been installed at the beginning of March 1975 was kept silent.
The second time was briefly wiretapped twelve days after the arrest of the lawyer Siegfried Haag in December 1976. Here, too, the reason was the assumption that attacks by RAF members from custody were planned and carried out through the traffic of prisoners.
Consequences for the Stammheim trial
The wiretapping operations, carried out by the State Criminal Police Office in Baden-Württemberg , did not provide any evidence to corroborate the suspicions. The Stammheim trial , which had lasted for almost two years , was endangered by the action. The defendants' election defense attorneys at the time, among them Otto Schily , reacted by moving out of the courtroom and no longer took part in the proceedings. In addition, the termination of the proceedings was requested because a large number of violations of elementary legal principles had to be ascertained. Also, all six public defender of the accused applied for a stay of proceedings, as long as Bender is no assurance of a "non-listening" traffic between defendants and defenders. However, the Stammheim trial continued and ended about six weeks later with the conviction of the defendants.
literature
- Stefan Aust: The Baader-Meinhof-Complex , 2nd ext. Edition, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich October 2008, ISBN 978-3-442-46901-7 , pp. 341ff., 442ff. and 540ff ..
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c wdr.de: March 17, 2007: 30 years ago: wiretapping scandal in Stuttgart-Stammheim , accessed on May 17, 2010
- ↑ wiretapping affair: the coalition lurches . In: Der Spiegel . No. 13 , 1977, pp. 21-29 ( online ).
- ^ Aust, p. 341ff.
- ↑ a b c Christopher Tenfelde, The Red Army Fraction and the Criminal Justice. Anti-terror laws and their implementation in the Stammheim process, p. 218 ff.