Plutonium affair

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The plutonium affair is about the background to the illegal transport of more than 360 grams of plutonium, initiated by the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), with a Lufthansa machine from Moscow to Munich in 1994 in the run-up to the state election in Bavaria in 1994 .

Plutonium smuggling

In August 1994, the Colombian Justiniano Torres Benítez and the two Spaniards Julio Oroz Eguia and Javier Bengoechea Arratibel were arrested by the Bavarian police at Munich Airport and in a Munich hotel room. Torres Benítez, who came from Moscow on August 10, 1994 on a Lufthansa Boeing 737 , carried 363.4 grams of radioactive plutonium in his luggage , which only contained 87% plutonium-239 and was therefore not considered to be weaponized . In addition, more than 400 grams of the lithium-6 needed to build hydrogen bombs were found at Torres Benítez .

Torres Benítez, Oroz Eguia and Bengoechea Arratibel were then charged with violating the War Weapons Control Act . While BND President Konrad Porzner denied having initiated the plutonium smuggling shortly before the start of the trial in April 1995, the news magazine Der Spiegel revealed the Federal Intelligence Service as the client in the same month. As part of the so-called Operation Hades, the BND intended to prove that there was worldwide trade in plutonium suitable for the construction of nuclear weapons . The main criticism of the BND's approach was that Operation Hades provoked a sham deal without compelling reason , in the course of which plutonium was smuggled into Germany, disregarding all security precautions.

Committee of Inquiry

As a consequence, the affair led to an investigative committee of the Bundestag in May 1995. Before the plutonium investigation committee, the Spanish BND V-man Rafael Ferreras Fernandez (called "Rafa"), the link to the middlemen and the BND resident and BKA employee Peter Fischer-Hollweg in Madrid, reported that with the knowledge of the BND on August 10, 1994 Plutonium was smuggled from Moscow to Munich via Lufthansa in order to stage a politically useful manhunt at Munich Airport before the elections in Bavaria and the federal elections . In addition, Ferreras Fernandez stated that before the court hearings in Munich he had been pressured by employees of the Federal Intelligence Service to tell the truth there. So he had to fear for the life of his wife and child.

In July 1998 the committee came to the conclusion that “the BND did not initiate this plutonium case either in Munich or in its residency in Madrid. Furthermore, the BND informed the Federal Chancellery in a timely and appropriate manner. This then properly exercised its legal and technical supervision. There was no unlawful influence from the area of ​​the Chancellery on the decisions of the authorities involved in this case. ”Furthermore, the“ Bavarian police with the Munich public prosecutor determined the official actions. ”The origin of the plutonium could not be clarified, according to the committee only stated that it did not come from Western Europe. In February 1996, Focus had reported that the material would come from Obninsk .

Condemnation

Torres Benítez, Oroz Eguia and Bengoechea Arratibel were sentenced to between three and five years in prison in July 1995. According to the determination of the Munich Regional Court, it was "a classic police provocation " by the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office.

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ License to lie. Spiegel Online, December 18, 1995, accessed December 15, 2015 .
  2. ^ "Plutonium smuggling trial opens in Germany". Nuclear Threat Initiative , May 10, 1995; accessed May 20, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Jürgen Marks, Gunther Schnatmann: PLUTONIUM SMUGGLING: Approved by everyone in Bonn. Focus , April 15, 1995, accessed May 12, 2010 .
  4. ↑ Panic Made in Pullach . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1995 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Minutes of the Bundestag to set up the committee of inquiry
  6. ↑ Jürgen Marks: PLUTONIUM: 008 and the thousand hunters ". Focus , December 18, 1995, accessed on May 12, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Jürgen Marks: PLUTONIUM SMUGGING: Dangerous love affair. Focus , September 24, 1995, accessed May 12, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Jürgen Marks: PLUTONIUM COMMITTEE: Spanish agent swamps. Focus , October 21, 1996, accessed May 12, 2010 .
  9. ↑ Focus on the Bundestag ( Memento from September 14, 2004 in the Internet Archive ); July 1998
  10. ↑ Kind regards from Moscow , Focus, February 12, 1996
  11. ↑ Jürgen Marks: PLUTONIUM-SMUGGLING: Seduction was not necessary. Focus , July 24, 1995, accessed May 12, 2010 .
  12. ↑ Amateurs in office. In: DER SPIEGEL 52/1995. SPIEGEL-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG., December 25, 1995, accessed on April 5, 2018 (German): “ With the help of the Pullach service, 363.4 grams of plutonium were smuggled from Moscow to Munich in August 1994. The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office was involved in the action, which had lured the smugglers in with “a classic police provocation”, as the Munich Regional Court found in July. "