Saxony swamp

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Sachsensumpf” is a catchphrase for a hitherto not fully resolved affair about the alleged involvement of high-ranking personalities from the judiciary, politics, administration and business in the prostitution of minors , in real estate transactions and the related criminal activities in Saxony , especially in Leipzig . Another point of view is the inadmissible collection of false or undetectable allegations and rumors by the Department for Organized Crime of the Saxon State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) and the dissemination and overestimation of these allegations by journalists.

background

On January 28, 1993, the police stormed an illegal apartment brothel in Leipzig , which was operated by the former boxer Michael Wüst (in many sources also referred to by the pseudonym Martin Kugler) and called Jasmin . There, in 1992 and 1993, underage forced prostitutes had to be acquired . The girls, who were 13 to 19 years old at the time, were rescued and interrogated. They expressed themselves differently in relation to Michael Wüst and the hardship of their everyday life in Jasmin. Some of the girls unanimously stated that Wüst forced them into prostitution through intimidation, beatings and rape.

Michael Wüst was sentenced to four years and two months imprisonment in 1994 for human trafficking in the act of pimping , promoting prostitution and sexual abuse of children . The judge at the time, Jürgen Niemeyer, said in retrospect: "The verdict was a great concession, but still justifiable." In the same year, the then head of the legal department of the Leipzig Housing Association (LWB), Martin Klockzin, was shot. The perpetrators received a life sentence for this. Chief Detective Georg Wehling, the head of the Leipzig Commissariat K26 against Organized Crime, noticed, however, that the perpetrators of the attack had not been properly investigated. When the perpetrators were questioned again in 2000, they stated that Klockzin was said to have been a former customer in the Jasmin brothel , which the latter denies. Wehling thereupon instructed to re-examine the files on the Jasmin case . It was found that the suitors had not been asked once in the entire procedure.

The later and still unsolved affair goes back to the fact that the former forced prostitutes identified the former vice-president of the Leipzig district court and their judge in the 1994 trial, Jürgen Niemeyer, as a previous suitor during the interrogation by the police in 2000 . The women wanted to have recognized Norbert Röger as another suitor, who was then a public prosecutor in Leipzig and has been President of the Chemnitz Regional Court since January 2011 . The police officers who conducted the interrogation later refused to comment publicly.

Data collection by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution OK

In 2003, a department for organized crime (OK) was set up at the Saxon State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) . This unit had ten employees and was headed by the former public prosecutor Simone Henneck (now Skroch). One of the case complexes processed by the OK department, which was registered internally under the operation name “Abseits”, dealt with alleged mafia-like structures in Leipzig. These included the suspicion of illegal real estate transactions in the 1990s, prostitution, extortion and networking between politics, the judiciary and criminals. The murder attempt on Klockzin in 1994 was also assigned to this complex. In the years 2004 to 2006, the OK department put together 15,600 pages of files, which fill around 100 folders, for this observation complex.

However, the responsibility of the domestic secret service for this department was controversial from the start. In July 2005, the Saxon Constitutional Court declared the then state constitutional protection law to be partially unconstitutional and thus also restricted the permissibility of the service's observation of organized crime. On the basis of an audit report dated August 12, 2005, which saw the "reference to the free-democratic basic order [...] in all case complexes", the then Saxon Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) decided to monitor organized crime, including the To continue the case complex "offside" by the protection of the constitution. De Maizière reportedly appreciated the work of Henneck and her department very much. However, he neither had criminal investigations initiated by the public prosecutor, nor did he inform the state parliament about the available findings. The test report is supposed to show that the Saxon constitution protection had knowledge of alleged sexual abuse of children by well-known Leipzig public prosecutors and judges as early as the second quarter of 2005.

Public disclosure of the files

As a result of a change in the Constitutional Protection Act, the OK unit was dissolved again in May 2006. In March 2006 , the Saxon data protection officer Andreas Schurig initiated a review of how much data the LfV's OC department had collected, as it had only had a limited mandate to monitor organized crime. He concluded that some documents had been illegally collected there and should be destroyed. However, the Parliamentary Control Commission (PKK) of the Saxon state parliament decided on May 15, 2007, in agreement with Albrecht Buttolo , who had succeeded de Maizière as Minister of the Interior in November 2005, that the material should not be deleted, but used to further clarify the facts.

Also in May 2007, the first media reports appeared on the content of files from the OK section on the so-called “offside” case complex. The names Niemeyer and Röger also appeared as possible customers of the “children's brothel”.

In a speech at a special session of the Saxon state parliament on June 5, 2007, Interior Minister Buttolo confirmed the existence of active and dangerous criminal networks in Saxony, in which local officials are also involved. This became known as the so-called "Mafia Speech". The Federal Prosecutor's Office was called in, but announced in June 2007 that they saw no initial suspicion of the existence of a criminal organization . The Dresden public prosecutor's office began to investigate Jürgen Niemeyer in the office for obstruction of punishment . At the end of June to the beginning of July 2007, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution transferred files from the “Offside III” dossier.

The government and the judiciary relativized the allegations

At the beginning of July 2007, after the so-called “Saxon corruption” or “Saxon swamp” affair had been discussed in various national media, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which Reinhard Boos had taken over shortly before , said that the head of the OK department, Simone Henneck, had the files manipulated. It is said to have suggested that reports that were based solely on information from Leipzig Chief Detective Georg Wehling would also be supported by other, neutral sources. The state office initiated internal investigations against Henneck. Senior Public Prosecutor Christian Avenarius (SPD), the spokesman for the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office, announced that the police officer's material contained hardly any reliable facts for a criminal connection.

On August 6, 2007, two months after his so-called “Mafia speech”, the Interior Minister clearly distanced himself from what had been said before. At the time, he assumed that the materials were completely correct, which is now questionable in view of the "considerable craftsmanship [r] defects". Data acquisition and data evaluation had collapsed, and the credibility of the information was not checked. The chief inspector's reports did not stand up to tests by the public prosecutor's office and the state criminal investigation office. Many references were wrong or overrated. There could be no question of a “swamp”, “not even of larger puddles”.

An external review commission headed by the retired judge at the Federal Court of Justice Dietrich Beyer , who among other things belonged to the former director of the Hessian constitutional protection agency Lutz Irrgang, found in its interim report serious deficiencies in the Saxon constitutional protection authority, especially in the OC department. Intelligence regulations had been violated to a considerable extent, and the technical supervision of the department had been neglected by both the management of the authorities and the Ministry of the Interior. Staff in the unit had insufficient intelligence service training and trained middle-class police officers were used to obtain information. Even the head of department herself would not have had any specialist training or further education. Source reports have not been checked for their robustness in terms of content, and even recognizable inconclusive information has been processed as correct. Instead of preparing analyzes and situation reports in order to advise the government and coordinating with the police authorities, as was the case with the corresponding reports in offices for the protection of the constitution in other countries, the Saxon OC unit created suspicions at all costs, with individual employees operating "doggedly" and with "overzealousness". The result is a "disaster"

Libel Trials

In the 2008 trial, two of the girls who had been forced into prostitution declared that the high-ranking Leipzig lawyers were former suitors at Jasmin. The convicted pimp Michael Wüst testified that his lawyer had agreed with the court on a mild sentence, provided that Wüst did not wash “dirty laundry”. However, Wüst later revoked this claim. The public prosecutor's office considered the statements of the women to be unbelievable and closed the investigation against the lawyers; both received compensation for pain and suffering from the Free State of Saxony. The investigating officers were transferred and the K26 police station dissolved. In addition, several proceedings were initiated against Georg Wehling, the former head of K26 (8 times suspended, 1 time acquitted). He was on leave from duty.

Against the former forced prostitutes who had testified as witnesses in the trial against the lawyers, the trial for defamation was opened on December 15, 2011 before the Dresden District Court. The trial against her officially began on March 6, 2012, was only started in November 2012 due to multiple postponements, interrupted on the third day of the trial, then suspended and provisionally suspended at the beginning of September 2013.

In an article in the Spiegel, details of the statements of the two witnesses, who claim that the two lawyers are recognized as clients, were summarized: According to this, several experts classified them as credible witnesses. In the article, for example, the criminal law professor Joachim Renzikowski from Halle was quoted as saying that it was "a very important indicator when witnesses identify two people independently of one another". One of the two lawyers also claimed that they had never worn rimless glasses, as the witnesses said with the client "Ingo". When the Leipzig city magazine "Kreuzer" published a photo of the judge Niemeyer from the time in question, in which he wore almost frameless glasses, he defended himself according to the protocol by stating that they weren't "completely frameless".

"All of that", the article states, "might have been discussed in the course of the trial against Kopp and E.".

Committee of Inquiry

A connection with the inconsistencies about so-called “ownerless properties”, hundreds of which have been sold in Leipzig over the past few years, has not yet been proven, but is being investigated by a group of parliamentarians from the Saxon state parliament. It is checked whether the same groups of people are involved who play a role in the Saxon Marsh allegations. At the state parliament investigation committee on the “Saxon Marsh”, the city of Leipzig said “No” to the inspection of files. Mayor Jung relies on an expert opinion according to which the surrender would be unlawful because the Leipzig files were not part of the committee's investigation.

Simone Skroch (formerly Henneck), former head of the OK department at LfV, confirmed as the main witness in the state parliament's committee of inquiry at the beginning of March 2013 evidence of the "continued existence of structures of the former Ministry for State Security (MfS) in complex connection with organized crime". Skroch named the areas of economy, public administration and the red light district. There were actually indications that “people from the OC area consciously and purposefully lead to situations of blackmail, sometimes in connection with bribery and corruption”. The aim was to bring certain groups of people such as employees, civil servants, politicians and other representatives of public life into “relationships of dependency”. In March 2013, Skroch was confronted with disciplinary and investigative proceedings. On July 2, 2014, at the end of the committee of inquiry, the SPD, Greens and Left parliamentary groups presented their joint minority vote on the subject of “Saxon swamp” in the Saxon state parliament. They also stated that no solid evidence of the existence of “corrupt networks” had been found. However, they criticized the fact that the state government had not carried out the investigation seriously, but had even deliberately prevented it. Several affected employees were "destroyed in their professional and social position [...]".

Reporting and Legal Consequences

From summer 2007, Jürgen Roth reported on the alleged Sachsensumpf affair. For his reporting, Roth was severely criticized by the journalist Reiner Burger in a series of articles in the FAZ . Burger pointed out Roth u. a. after failing to speak directly to affected persons. In this context, Roth had to withdraw statements on his homepage about an entrepreneur. The Dresden District Court sentenced him to a fine in spring 2008 for defamation. The investigation committee of the Saxon state parliament did not come to a uniform conclusion about the Saxon swamp in 2009. The CDU and FDP see it as refuted, the Greens and the left could not find any evidence for or against the Saxon swamp allegation. The state government largely refused access to the files to the investigative committee. The public prosecutor's office is no longer investigating the Sachsensumpf affair, as it believes it has been refuted. In June 2010, an investigative committee was set up in the Saxon state parliament, which has set itself the goal of examining the Saxon political landscape for corruption and mafia involvement.

Journalists Arndt Ginzel and Thomas Datt also reported on the case in Spiegel and Zeit Online . Both were charged with defamation and defamation. They were accused, among other things, of making defamatory claims against the Saxon lawyers. In one case, the Dresden District Court sentenced them to a fine of 50 daily rates of 50 euros (2500 euros) each on August 13, 2010, against which the two journalists appealed. On December 10, 2012, the Dresden Regional Court overturned the judgment. The presiding judge Martin Schultze-Griebler took the view that, according to the constant judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court, “controversial media statements should always be seen in context”. After the Public Prosecutor General of the Free State of Saxony withdrew a previously filed appeal in July 2013, the acquittal is final.

On the occasion of the defamation process against the former girls who were forced into prostitution, Jana Simon and Sigrid Reinichs reported again on the subject in Zeitmagazin . Above all, they highlighted the situation of Mandy Kopp , who was forced into prostitution at the age of 16 in the Jasmin children's brothel in Leipzig. In November 2008, she and Beatrice E., who had also worked at Jasmin , were charged with defamation because they had stated that they had recognized a judge who had previously worked at the Leipzig regional court as a customer of the brothel. The proceedings were temporarily suspended in October 2013. The 2012/13 annual report of the organization Reporters Without Borders named the trial against journalists in the “Sachsensumpf” case as one of five reasons for a somewhat worsened assessment of press freedom in Germany (17th place out of 179 countries in the global ranking).

Martin Klockzin sued successfully against the publisher, the journalist and Klockzin's former secretary because of a report in the online edition of Stern from June 22, 2007 under the title "Saxon Corruption Affair: A Crime from the Leipzig Swamp". He demanded the payment of monetary compensation for violating his general right to privacy . In the opinion of the higher regional court (OLG) Dresden , which decides in the appeal instance , the VI. The civil senate of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) joined in its appeal decision , the report had unilaterally presented the accusations of the secretary against Klockzin and "adopted" them. Although Klockzin had refused the journalist's request for an interview, the latter had not brought him to the attention of the specific allegations that were supposed to be the subject of the contribution and so, according to the consensus of the courts, had not given him sufficient opportunity to comment. The article had therefore given the impression that Klockzin “was a pedophile, that he had a sexual relationship with an underage girl named Lissy, that he was corrupt, part of a criminal Leipzig network (so-called Saxon corruption affair), that he had not fulfilled his official duties and [ his former secretary] threatened by texting her that her cat had been strangled and that three motorcyclists he knew had pushed her away from the traffic ”. However, these allegations are not proven to be true and Klockzin's honor is therefore unlawfully violated . After the Leipzig Regional Court had awarded Klockzin monetary compensation in the amount of 75,000 euros, the OLG reduced the amount to 50,000 euros. The BGH basically confirmed Klockzins claim for compensation, but complained about errors in the calculation of the specific amount and referred the case back to the lower court with appropriate measures. The decision of the BGH was cited in legal literature as a key decision on questions of monetary compensation for violations of personal rights through statements on the Internet.

The Lausitzer Rundschau reported on July 3, 2014 under the title "Sachsensumpf affair: Almost nothing is cleared up" about the end of the proceedings and quoted Johannes Lichdi from Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen : "The investigations into the public prosecutors accused and judges were never seriously pursued and should be hired from the start ”. On the occasion of the presentation of the committee's final report in October 2014, Die Welt am Sonntag again reported on how the affair had been dealt with and found that many questions remained unanswered. According to the Saxon opposition, it is noteworthy with what severity the Saxon judicial authorities acted against those - especially journalists - who doubted the official declaration and still assumed the existence of criminal structures.

judgment

In March 2016, the Dresden Regional Court opened the main proceedings in criminal proceedings that had been ongoing since 2010 against the former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, OK Simone Skroch, and the Leipzig detective Georg Wehling on charges of persecuting innocent people (Skroch) or aiding and abetting them (Wehling) . The Saxon state government is also maintaining the civil service disciplinary proceedings against both of them. In the opinion of the defender of the main accused Skroch, the former Saxon data protection officer Thomas Giesen , the former head of department in the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution could not have been held responsible for prosecuting innocent people because the authority was and is not part of the prosecution.

On May 14, 2018, the judgments were made before the Dresden Regional Court. The public prosecutor had previously dropped charges of persecution of innocent people and both defendants were acquitted on this point. However, the charge of the unofficial false testimony before the investigative committee of the state parliament remained. In the case of Simone Henneck, it was about an officially pre-dated meeting with Georg Wehling, which was apparently intended to overturn the prohibition on the use of the information. In 2005 the Constitutional Court of Saxony restricted the tasks of the Organized Crime Unit - therefore no more messages should have been collected. Henneck was therefore sentenced to a fine of 140 daily rates (14,000 euros). The former police officer Wehling, however, was charged with telling the committee that he did not know a particular public prosecutor. This was assessed as a false statement and also punished with 140 daily rates (7,000 euros). In both cases, the court went slightly beyond the prosecution's request. Henneck claimed that a defense was hardly possible because it was not released from its duty of confidentiality under civil service law. Her defense lawyer, Giesen, accused the presiding judge of violating fair trial principles.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Reiner Burger: The Saxony swamp has dried up. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine (Online), April 3, 2008.
  2. a b c d e Jens Schneider: The alleged Saxon swamp. Baseless rumors - bad accusations. In: Süddeutsche.de May 17, 2010.
  3. ^ Eckhard Jesse , Thomas Schubert, Tom Thieme: Politics in Saxony. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2014, pp. 321–322.
  4. a b c d Jana Simon , Sigrid Reinichs: In the swamp. Zeitmagazin No. 10, March 2012.
  5. Thomas Datt, Arndt Ginzel: The story of "Jasmin" Zeit Online , June 27, 2008.
  6. New President at the Chemnitz Regional Court - Justice Minister Dr. Jürgen Martens appoints Norbert Röger. ( Memento of the original from December 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.justiz.sachsen.de 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. Press release from the Saxon State Ministry of Justice, December 23, 2010.
  7. a b c Sabine Beikler: Corruption affair in Saxony - The dark side of power. In: Der Tagesspiegel (Online), July 7, 2007.
  8. ^ Constitutional Court of the Free State of Saxony, judgment of July 21, 2005, file number Vf. 67-II-04; quoted according to the Saxon Constitutional Protection Act in part unconstitutional. ( Memento of the original from December 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.verfassungsgerichtshof.sachsen.de 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. Press release of the Constitutional Court of the Free State of Saxony from July 21, 2005.
  9. Contribution of the television magazine Kontraste from June 28, 2007, 3 min, video with transcript
  10. Contribution to the television magazine Kontraste from June 28, 2007, at 4 min, video with transcript
  11. Thomas Schade, Gunnar Saft: Minister Buttolo warns of Mafia. In: Sächsische Zeitung Online , June 6, 2007.
  12. ^ A b Reiner Burger: Saxony - Considerable deficiencies in the protection of the constitution. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine (Online), August 24, 2007.
  13. ^ A b c Thomas Datt, Arndt Ginzel: Premature acquittal Zeit Online , June 25, 2008.
  14. ^ Alexander Wendt: Saxony Affair - Nothing but pepped up dossiers? In: Focus , No. 28/2007, July 9, 2007.
  15. Hubert Kemper: Buttolo distances himself from mafia speech. In: Freie Presse (online), August 6, 2007.
  16. Corruption affair: Saxony's interior minister no longer wants to hear about the mafia speech , Spiegel Online, August 7, 2007.
  17. Massive criticism of the protection of the constitution. Independent test team speaks of a "disaster". In: Free Press (Online)
  18. a b Thomas Datt, Arndt Ginzel: Dangerous traces. Die Zeit , November 16, 2007.
  19. Thomas Datt, Arndt Ginzel: Impeccable justice officials. , kreuzer - The Leipzig Magazine. Issue 12/2011. Pp. 32-33.
  20. Jörg Schurig: The process surrounding the “Sachsensumpf” affair was postponed. Saxon Newspaper , March 6, 2012.
  21. Ralf Julke: Sachsensumpf the next act . Leipziger Internet Zeitung, March 2012
  22. Anna-Lena Roth: Trial against forced prostitutes: No more victims . In: Spiegel Online . November 8, 2012 ( spiegel.de [accessed August 3, 2018]).
  23. ^ "Sachsensumpf" affair Provisional end of a libel suit - Andreas Förster , accessed on January 13, 2020
  24. AFFAIRS: Testified at the wrong time - DER SPIEGEL 43/2013. Retrieved July 6, 2020 .
  25. Süddeutsche Zeitung admits errors in reporting about abandoned properties . ( Memento of the original from February 11, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) 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. In: leipzig.de , June 15, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.leipzig.de
  26. ^ LVZ-Online : Affair about abandoned land in Leipzig - clarification possible in 2013, dpa, Gitta Keil, November 11, 2012
  27. LVZ-Online: Sachsensumpf-Investigations: References to contacts of ex-Stasi people on crime, dpa, LVZ-Online, March 8, 2013 ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lvz-online.de
  28. ^ Report of the members of the parliamentary groups DIE LINKE of the SPD and BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN.
  29. Markus Bernhardt: Not arrived in the rule of law. young world , June 26, 2009.
  30. see: Reiner Burger: The Saxony swamp has dried up . In: FAZ from April 3, 2008 . S. 44 . - and - Reiner Burger: That is fatally reminiscent of the Sebnitz case . Media legend "Saxony Swamp". In: FAZ.net from August 15, 2007 . - and - Jürgen Roth (2009): Why does FAZ journalist Reiner Burger receive a medal? ( Memento from September 3, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  31. Denis Gabriel: Order for hot air. young world , July 10, 2009.
  32. Domestic in brief. In: FAZ , June 25, 2010.
  33. ^ AG Dresden, judgment of August 13, 2010, Az. 231 Cs 900 Js 28869/08 ( openJur 2010, 3256 )
  34. ^ LG Dresden, judgment of December 10, 2012, Az. 12 Ns 900 Js 28869/08 ( openJur 2013, 4644 )
  35. Dresden Regional Court acquits journalists. In: Spiegel Online , December 10, 2012.
  36. Sachsensumpf: acquittal final , July 12, 2013
  37. Anna-Lena Roth: No more victim. In: Spiegel Online , November 8, 2012.
  38. Der Spiegel 43/2013 of October 21, 2013, pp. 47–49
  39. Close-up: Freedom of the press in Germany - the topics , Reporters Without Borders, January 30, 2013.
  40. Federal Court of Justice, judgment of December 17, 2013, file number VI ZR 211/12 . Printed in Neue Juristische Wochenschrift (NJW) 2014, pp. 2029 ff.
  41. BGH, judgment of December 17, 2013 - VI ZR 211/12, p. 9, para. 8th.
  42. Ex-manager receives compensation from Stern online and Bild. In: Sächsische Zeitung , May 4, 2012.
  43. Georgios Gounalakis: Compensation for defamatory statements made by third parties on the Internet. In: NJW 2014, pp. 2000–2003.
  44. Hartwig Sprau, in Palandt : Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch. 74th edition, CH Beck, Munich 2015, § 823, para. 130.
  45. ^ Sachsensumpf affair: Almost nothing has been resolved , Lausitzer Rundschau, July 3, 2014
  46. Uwe Müller: Dense fog over the Saxon swamp In: Welt am Sonntag , October 2, 2014, p. 36.
  47. Klaus Bartl's short inquiry about the stand in the “Sachsensumpf”. Drs. 4593. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  48. ^ Leipziger Internet Zeitung: Proceedings against the former head of the OC at the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Leipzig Commissioner are to be opened - L-IZ.de In: www.l-iz.de. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  49. ^ LVZ-Online: Trial in Dresden - court wants to see secret files on the "Saxon swamp" - LVZ - Leipziger Volkszeitung. Retrieved May 29, 2017 .
  50. Leipziger Internet Zeitung: The Dresden Regional Court clears Simone H. and Georg W. from the accusation of persecuting innocent people or of helping them - L-IZ.de. Accessed on May 16, 2018 (German).
  51. a b acquittal and heavy fines in the Sachsensumpf trial. May 14, 2018, accessed on May 14, 2018 (German).
  52. Björn Menze: Former forced prostitutes: How the justice system stigmatized Mandy Kopp , Spiegel Online April 6, 2013