Donald Klein arrested
The imprisonment of Donald Klein in Iran took more than 15 months. The German stonemason was arrested at the end of 2005 while fishing in deep sea and was not released until March 2007 after lengthy negotiations.
Klein, who comes from Lambsheim in the Palatinate , was arrested together with the Frenchman Stephane Lherbier on November 29, 2005 while deep-sea fishing off the coast of the military restricted area of Abu Mussa . Both were sentenced to 18 months in prison for illegally entering Iranian territorial waters. The judgment was confirmed in a revision. Klaus Kübler, a former member of the Bundestag from Bensheim , represented him as a lawyer in the trials .
In December 2006, Federal President Horst Köhler sent a petition for clemency to the supreme Iranian leader Ayatollah Seyyed Alī Chāmene'ī . But while fellow prisoner Lherbier was released early on February 25, 2007, Klein faced another trial for alleged espionage. It was only after the former Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher visited Tehran at the beginning of March that Klein was released prematurely on March 12, 2007.
The Klein case put a considerable strain on foreign policy relations with the Federal Republic. The intransigence of the Iranian government and the circumstances of the conviction and release were generally interpreted as an indication that Donald Klein was a bargaining chip for the Mykonos assassin Kazem Darabi , who was imprisoned in Germany . Iranian negotiators had increasingly clearly pointed to his early release after it had previously been said that “negotiations must lead to 'humanitarian improvements' on both sides.” The Rhineland-Palatinate Prime Minister Kurt Beck had emphasized in March that Donald Klein would not be released Have given in return. However, six months later Darabi was actually released.
Donald Klein died on February 2, 2013 at the age of 59 due to cancer.
Individual evidence
- ↑ tagesschau.de, After release from Iranian custody - Donald Klein is back in Germany , from March 14, 2007 (tagesschau.de archive)
- ↑ a b Jürgen Dahlkamp, Holger Stark: On the hook of arbitrariness . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2007 ( online - March 19, 2007 ).
- ↑ Melanie Amann: Angler in Iran threatens a second trial for espionage. Prosecutor General announces further investigations . In: Financial Times Germany . January 30, 2006, ISSN 1615-4118 ( paid online [accessed August 29, 2013]).
- ↑ a b Genscher mediated in Iran in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 14, 2007.
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung : Mykonos assassin Darabi is released October 11, 2007