Denis Payot

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Denis Payot (born July 9, 1942 , † September 14, 1990 ) was a Swiss lawyer with a law firm in Geneva . In addition, Payot was president of the Swiss League for Human Rights until 1978 . Payot was used in 1977 in the Schleyer kidnapping as a mediator and, above all, a message transmitter between the terrorists of the Red Army Faction (RAF) and the Federal Criminal Police Office and the police . He received a fee of around 500,000 Swiss francs for this mediation .

Mediation in the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer

In its letter of confession, which was sent to the authorities one day after Hanns-Martin Schleyer's kidnapping on September 6, 1977, via a Wiesbaden pastor, the RAF first mentioned the name of the Swiss lawyer. According to the terrorists' wishes, he and Pastor Martin Niemöller were supposed to accompany the prisoners to be released on their way to a country of their choice for their safety. The decision of the federal government to use Payot as a mediator was made at the meeting of the small crisis team on September 8th. The proposal to use Payot as an intermediary came from Horst Herold , the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office , who was then also commissioned to contact Payot. Payot went to the press late in the evening of September 10th and declared: “I have not taken on a mandate from the German police. The mandate is signed and issued by the Federal Government itself under the chairmanship of the Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Schmidt . "

Schleyer's kidnappers contacted the lawyer fourteen times by telephone from September 6 to 17. Outgoing telephone calls from Germany to the Payot connection were intercepted by the Frankfurt telecommunications office by the Federal Criminal Police Office, and an interception circuit was set up so that these calls could be traced back to Cologne telephone booths. The French authorities found that Payot had also received several calls from the Gare du Nord in Paris .

The federal government used Payot's mediation to delay, about which the RAF complained to Payot on September 14 that he should object to the function of "postponing and delaying" intended for him by the federal government. But over the next few weeks, messages were exchanged between the federal government and the kidnappers via Payot. On October 8, Payot received a letter that Schleyer had handwritten. In addition to greetings intended for Schleyer's wife, the letter said, among other things, that Payot's intermediary activity no longer serves any further purpose as long as it does not really lead to results.

On October 14, around 2 a.m., Payot received the declaration by telephone of the RAF terrorists to be involved in the hijacking of the Lufthansa Landshut plane . The passengers and crew of Lufthansa flight 181 are under the control of Siegfried Hausner's command , it said. They have the same demands as the Martyr Halimeh Command .

Familiar

Denis Payot was a nephew of Taizé founder, Brother Roger Schutz .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Société Genevoise de Généalogie
  2. ↑ Obituary ( French ) , Le Temps. September 17, 1990. Archived from the original on December 11, 2014. Retrieved January 30, 2012. 
  3. ↑ Professional: Denis Payot . In: Der Spiegel . No. 16 , 1978, p. 284 ( online ).
  4. ↑ a b Drunk coffee . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1977, pp. 146-147 ( online ).
  5. ↑ a b Aust, p. 519.
  6. ^ Aust, page 499.
  7. ^ Aust, p. 513 f.
  8. ^ Aust, p. 556.
  9. ^ Aust, p. 557.
  10. ↑ a b Aust, p. 598.
  11. ^ Aust, p. 583 f.
personal data
SURNAME Payot, Denis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss lawyer with a law firm in Geneva
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1942
DATE OF DEATH September 14, 1990