Bruno Schirra

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Bruno Schirra (* 1958 in Illingen ) is a German journalist and author . He works as a freelance journalist.

Life

Bruno Schirra was born in Saarland and trained as a winemaker in Rhineland-Palatinate . He then drove trucks for a few years, including to Afghanistan, and thus got to know his future field of work. Schirra graduated from the Protestant School of Journalism in Berlin-Charlottenburg and was then editor of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit . There he made a name for himself - together with his colleague Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff  - with research on the Leuna affair . Since leaving Die Zeit , Schirra has been writing for the monthly magazine Cicero from the Swiss publishing house Ringier and the daily newspaper Die Welt . The focus of his reporting is the Middle East .

Legal disputes over "betrayal of secrets"

House search and seizure 2005

In September 2005 the editorial offices of the Cicero and the private house of Schirras were searched by the police. The reason was an article in the April issue in which Schirra had portrayed the Iraqi terrorist Abu Musab az-Zarqawi and quoted information from confidential files of the Federal Criminal Police Office . The search was criticized in the German press as an attack on independent journalism and the freedom of the press , and parallels are drawn with the Spiegel affair in 1962. Cicero editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer and Schirra are accused of aiding and abetting betrayal of secrets . FDP, Die Grünen and Linkspartei.PDS considered a parliamentary committee of inquiry . In October 2005, the Bundestag Interior Committee held a special meeting at which the Federal Interior Minister responsible, Otto Schily , was supposed to comment in a closed session on the prosecution's allegations that the search of Cicero initiated on suspicion of betrayal of secrets was disproportionate.

As part of the search of Bruno Schirra's private house, the entire basement with the files stored there from the last 15 years of Schirra's journalistic activities were searched and the materials found (approx. 100 files) were completely removed.

In the meantime, the original proceedings against Bruno Schirra were discontinued, but further proceedings were initiated against him, as confidential documents from the Leuna affair were also found among the files found. The judicial exploitation of these files declared by the public prosecutor's office as incidental finds in the context of the proceedings that have now been initiated is regarded by lawyers as inadmissible.

Rejection of criminal proceedings against Schirra in 2006

The Potsdam public prosecutor's office cited Section 353b of the Criminal Code, which criminalized the disclosure of official secrets by a public official. On July 17, 2006, the Potsdam District Court refused to open proceedings against Schirra and against Johannes von Dohnanyi , the international head of the Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick , for “aiding and abetting betrayal of secrets” . The rejection related to two points: on the one hand, Schirra was not aiding and abetting the betrayal of secrets, such as by publishing it here, since it is not known whether the informant, unknown to him, wanted it to be published. As a result, the betrayal of secrets with the disclosure of the information to the journalist would not only have been completed, but also ended. The termination thus precludes aid. Second, the investigative journalist and author Jean-Charles Brisard had already quoted from the BKA dossier in 2004. The public prosecutor's office filed an immediate complaint , with which the OLG will now be the next instance to decide.

Formally and ostensibly, this legal dispute is only about the betrayal of official secrets, in terms of content and essentially it is a dispute about the fundamental right of freedom of the press in the form of the right to refuse to testify for the purpose of protecting informants.

The tenor of the criticism of the judgment related only to the how, the freedom of the press should have been justified in a better way as a protection of internal informants against the security interests of the respective authorities. As a consequence of the affair, journalists' associations, the Greens and the Left Party are calling for the abolition of the criminal offense of aiding and abetting betrayal. However, this case was just one particularly spectacular example of official intimidation towards German journalists who published confidential information and abuses.

Constitutional Complaints

In November 2006, Cicero's editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer filed two constitutional complaints against the search and seizure ordered by the Potsdam District Court at the Federal Constitutional Court. On February 27, 2007, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled Weimer and assessed the searches in the Cicero editorial office and in Schirra's apartment as an interference with freedom of the press that could not be constitutionally justified. According to the court, 15 files from Bruno Schirra were lost.

Schirra's damage from proceedings

Despite the positive outcome, no informant has wanted to work with him since the trial. Schirra sees his professional existence destroyed, as his archives and research material are still confiscated. During the trial, he received anonymous calls at any time of the day, which he still gets today. Israeli and Arab sources informed him that they would no longer give any information. In October 2007, he was beaten up near his home by two men believed to be Arab. His employer, Ringier Verlag, dismissed his foreign reporter for financial reasons and because he was concerned about the publisher's reputation after the Borer affair in 2002. Schirra is therefore suing the Potsdam Regional Court for damages against the State of Brandenburg for the loss of income.

Quotes

"I see this [the search and the confiscation of his documents] as a crystal clear message to colleagues who work in a similarly investigative manner as I do. We all and our informants should be intimidated by it."

Fonts (selection)

literature

Article by Schirra

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ulrike Simon: "Cicero" affair. Caught in the rumor . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 1, 2009
  2. ↑ Bruno Schirra: The most dangerous man in the world . In: Cicero , April 2005
  3. ↑ Karlsruhe judges strengthen press freedom (tagesschau.de archive), tagesschau.de , February 27, 2007
  4. ↑ Schirra: "We should be intimidated" . ( Memento from October 23, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) In: netzeitung , October 21, 2005
personal data
SURNAME Schirra, Bruno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Illingen