Margrit Lichtinghagen

Margrit Lichtinghagen (* 1954 ) is a German lawyer serving the North Rhine-Westphalian judiciary. The media-effective arrest of Klaus Zumwinkel , at that time CEO of Deutsche Post , attracted a lot of public attention.

Life

Margrit Lichtinghagen has worked as a public prosecutor in commercial criminal matters since 1993 for the public prosecutor's office at the Bochum district court , a public prosecutor specializing in criminal tax matters . When prosecuting tax evasion, her main focus was not on imprisonment, but on offsetting tax fraud. In her words, she took from those responsible “what they love best - their money. In prison [...] these criminals would only cost the state more money. ”On February 14, 2008, she came into the limelight when she and the head of Deutsche Post AG , Klaus Zumwinkel , one of the most influential German managers arrested cameras running. It is unclear who informed the press in advance of the arrest. Zumwinkel became the most prominent defendant in the Liechtenstein tax affair .

A conflict within the authorities culminated on December 9, 2008, five weeks after the indictment was brought and six weeks before the start of the trial against Zumwinkel, in the withdrawal of the trial and the plan for Lichtinghagen to be transferred to the youth department by her superiors. The disempowerment caused public outrage and preoccupied the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia in a question time . Thereupon the Ministry of Justice North Rhine-Westphalia threatened the Bochum authority with Lichtinghagen's transfer - including their proceedings - to the public prosecutor's office in Cologne . At her own request, she finally moved to the Essen District Court on January 1, 2009 , where she worked as a judge in general adult criminal matters.

The proceedings in the Bochum public prosecutor's office resulted in an internal procedure to clarify the mutual allegations. In January 2009, the Ministry of Justice withdrew the proceedings from the responsible attorney general in Hamm , as he was considered biased as the former head of the Bochum authority, but did not withdraw himself, and handed it over to the Düsseldorf attorney general. As a result of the investigation, the allegations against Margrit Lichtinghagen were not upheld under criminal law or disciplinary law.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Die Zeit : Steuerfahnder: "We are the stupid" , from February 6, 2014
2. ↑ Guilt and the stage . In: Der Spiegel . No.  3 , 2009 ( online ).
3. ↑ Unprecedented mud battle . In: taz , December 17, 2008, accessed May 2, 2011.
4. ^ Public prosecutor Lichtinghagen becomes judge. In: Spiegel Online , December 16, 2008, accessed May 2, 2011.
5. ↑ Business distribution plan 2009 of the Essen District Court ( memento of the original from September 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Barbara Schmid: Minister withdraws Public Prosecutor General's jurisdiction. January 6, 2009, accessed January 15, 2018 .  
7. ↑ Westfälische Rundschau , June 23, 2009.