Case of Markus R.

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The Markus R. case describes the unmasking of an officer of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Pullach as an informant for the US secret services . The case can be classified within the global surveillance and espionage affair that began in June 2013 with the revelations of Edward Snowden . If the suspicion of espionage is confirmed, it would be the biggest scandal to date about a German-American agent since the post-war period. It is also a special case in terms of quality: the (unmasked) placement of an agent in a friendly intelligence service has never existed in the history of the BND on the one hand and US services on the other.

Professional background

Markus R., who comes from the region around Munich, worked for the BND in the middle service in the registry of the department “Areas of Operation Abroad” in Pullach, Bavaria . The department is responsible for communication with residents of the BND abroad and contacts with partner services in other countries. He was 31 years old when he was arrested. On 4 July 2014 the public became known that he by the Federal Prosecutor's Office because of the strong suspicion was arrested the intelligence agent activities on 2 July.

Dissemination of information

The information publicly available on the case comes from a joint research by WDR , NDR and Süddeutscher Zeitung . Afterwards, Markus R. allegedly came into contact with the US embassy in Berlin in 2012 . He is said to have sent an email to the embassy, ​​whereupon an intelligence agent with the code name Craig reported to him. At the time, Philip Murphy was ambassador in Berlin. As the magazine Der Spiegel researched, Markus R. is said not to have been taken from the United States Embassy in Berlin , but from the US Embassy in Vienna . For the CIA , it meant a lower risk of discovery to keep the sensitive source Markus R. from nearby foreign countries.

Since 2008 he is said to have taken a total of 218 document collections from the BND , including 3,500 real names of German agents, and sold them on USB sticks at conspiratorial meetings in Salzburg for at least 95,000 euros to US secret services .

The BND employee was only exposed when he also offered the Russians his services in an email on May 28, 2014 via his Gmail account, saying that it was the decisive clue that later led to the arrest. The mail was sent by the counter-intelligence of the intelligence service intercepted. Markus R. had attached three BND documents classified as secret in his email to the Russian Consulate General in Munich in order to convince the recipients of the seriousness of his offer. During the search of R.'s apartment, the investigators found a USB stick with stolen BND papers and a computer which, according to initial findings, had been prepared by the US secret service so that R. could communicate with his clients in encrypted form .

According to the assessment of the members of the parliamentary control body - contrary to initial assumptions - the NSA investigation committee of the Bundestag was not the aim of the surveillance. Only one file of the 218 documents found in the alleged BND spy is concerned with the NSA committee. In it, BND President Gerhard Schindler gave an instruction to his authority not to shred any more files because the NSA committee might request them. In total, the 218 files would have a size of five Leitz files.

It is unclear whether Markus R. had also offered Russian services to pass on information before or during this time. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution made a routine inquiry to the BND via an employee of the Department of Defense , who was later revealed to be a US spy. There was a suspicion in the room that the Defense Ministry employee was passing information on to Russian services. It was this request that Markus R. forwarded to the Russian Consul General in Munich. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution wanted to know whether the BND was aware that the advisor was spying on behalf of the Russians. The man whose apartment in the greater Berlin area and his office in Berlin's Bendlerblock were searched on July 9 is now under suspicion of spying for the Americans as well. He denies the allegations. The civilian worked as a consultant in the Department of Politics of the Ministry of Defense and is said to have been responsible for international armaments cooperation. He thus participated in the preparation of security policy directional decisions by the ministry. This second case was discovered by the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD).

Markus R.'s documents show that the BND intercepted a phone call from then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was flying over a crisis area in a US government machine. The BND monitored communications there. However, German government circles deny that there is systematic espionage by the BND against the USA . Rather, the conversation that Clinton had during her tenure from a US government machine was only picked up by chance. So the intercepted conversation was a kind of by-catch. However, the transcript of the phone call was not immediately destroyed. A number of BND officials read it. Only then was it supposed to be destroyed - by Markus R., of all people, who copied the transcript and gave it to the CIA.

In the documents that Markus R. gave to the CIA, there is another very sensitive piece of paper, one of the most closely guarded secrets - not even the Parliamentary Control Committee has been allowed to see it so far - the “Federal Government's mission profile” for the German secret service , it is the BND's comprehensive counter-espionage concept. It describes in detail how the Germans proceed when spying on and analyzing foreign intelligence services, including all the countries that the BND is supposed to spy on. The USA is not among them, but the NATO partner country Turkey .

Arrest and allegations

The federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe accuses Markus R. of having also spied on the NSA committee of inquiry on behalf of a US secret service, he is said to have been questioned several times by the US secret service and to have reported at least once on the activities of the NSA committee of inquiry in the USA to have. Markus R. gave information immediately after his arrest on July 2nd and without legal assistance. On July 4th, the Ambassador of the United States to Germany, John B. Emerson , was asked to speak to the Foreign Office , and State Secretary Stephan Steinlein asked him to “contribute to a speedy investigation,” the Foreign Office then announced.

The US Ambassador Emerson also had to go to the Foreign Office for a discussion on the new espionage case . This second time, he allegedly asked to meet himself.

Should the federal prosecutor identify the agent (s) from Austria, they would not enjoy diplomatic protection in the event of criminal proceedings in Germany .

The suspect's lawyer, Markus R. Klaus Schroth , stated that his client did not give the impression of “having the qualities and personality structure that are usually associated with espionage activity” and requested an expert report on the condition of his client. Markus R. suffers from a disability due to a vaccine damage that he suffered when he was one year old in the GDR.

reaction

Chancellor Angela Merkel demonstrated incomprehension: "From my point of view, it is not a partnership when something like this happens." However, she does not think that the Americans can be driven out of spying - or that it is easy to completely change the work of the intelligence services. At the same time, Merkel committed to working with the USA. You have not instructed the secret services to reduce cooperation with the US colleagues. She also thinks nothing of suspending negotiations on the planned Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TTIP).

When the Chancellor expressed criticism of the possible role of the USA during a visit to China , one of the USA’s fiercest rivals, there was initially no official reaction to the espionage affair from the US side. On July 9, CIA chief John O. Brennan personally contacted the Chancellery . It was reported that Brennan had phoned the coordinator of the federal intelligence services , Klaus-Dieter Fritsche , to limit the damage . Both sides remain silent about the content of the conversation. Brennan had previously initiated selected senators in Congress into the espionage affair. The open questions include when the White House was inaugurated in the details. It was reported that US President Barack Obama , like secret service coordinator James Clapper , had not been informed.

On July 10, 2014, the federal government announced at the committee meeting of the NSA committee of inquiry that the top representative of the US secret service, the CIA, would be asked to leave Germany. The government spokesman Steffen Seibert stated that the request for expulsion "was issued against the background of the ongoing investigations by the Attorney General as well as the questions pending for months about the activities of US intelligence services in Germany, for which the German Bundestag has set up a parliamentary committee of inquiry" - at the same time raised he highlighted the German interest in continuing to work closely with the USA. The chairman of the Bundestag committee for the control of the secret services (PKGr) Clemens Binninger announced that the request was made "as a reaction to the long-term lack of cooperation in the effort to clarify", the SPD representative in the PKGr, Burkhard Lischka , described the request as "Correct reaction". Germany asked many questions in the USA “without getting any answer”. The opposition parties Greens and Left also welcomed the federal government's move .

The parliamentary group of the party Die Linke called for the negotiations on TTIP to be suspended. The Union chairman in the NSA committee of inquiry, Roderich Kiesewetter , called for a “substantial increase” in the BND budget in order to be able to expand counter-espionage to allied states such as the USA in the future.

Former Turkish Vice Prime Minister Ertuğrul Yalçınbayır demanded: "We now need a no-spy agreement."

On August 11, 2015, the Federal Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice brought charges of treason before the Munich Higher Regional Court.

Trial before the Munich Higher Regional Court

The trial against Markus R. began on November 16, 2015 under strict security conditions. Markus R. has made a comprehensive confession. For the assessment of the amount of the fine, an expert opinion was commissioned to determine what damage was caused to the Federal Republic by the disclosure of the documents. On March 17, 2016, Markus R. was sentenced to 8 years in prison for treason and violation of official secrets .

Individual evidence

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