Suspicion of Russian espionage - Defense lawyer in BND trial raises accusations
In the trial against a BND employee on suspicion of spying on Russia, the defense has expressed doubts about the investigators and the proceedings. In addition, his client is being held in "torture-like solitary confinement", said defense lawyer Johannes Eisenberg on Wednesday before the Berlin Court of Appeal. The court and the federal prosecutor's office rejected the accusations.
Eisenberg is representing the 53-year-old employee of the Federal Intelligence Service Carsten L., who is accused together with the 32-year-old businessman Arthur E.. They are alleged to have passed on secret information to the Russian secret service FSB after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 and received hundreds of thousands of euros in agent pay in return. The federal prosecutor's office accuses them of treason in a particularly serious case. The two Germans are in custody.
Because they are said to have exchanged information in a letter forwarded via fellow prisoners, the court had tightened the prison conditions. Carsten L. is now "alone and isolated" seven days a week, 24 hours a day, said Eisenberg. That was tantamount to torture. The sixth criminal division rejected this in a ruling. The restrictions were necessary.
Lawyer speaks of "file confusion"
Eisenberg also said that the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office was continuing to investigate without the knowledge of those involved in the trial and was withholding information. File numbers had been falsified. "So we are dealing with forgers," said Eisenberg. Federal prosecutor Lars Malskies rejected this. Lawyer Eisenberg also complained that the trial files were arranged in such a confusing manner that the work of the defense lawyers was made more difficult. It was a "presumably deliberately botched file arrangement", a "confusion of files".
This day of the trial was actually about the conspiratorially exchanged letter - the so-called Kassiber. In it, the accused L. is said to have urged the co-defendant E. to retract his statements. The court heard two employees of the Moabit remand prison explain how the letter was discovered and attributed to the accused. The hearing of evidence is to continue on Thursday.
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Source: www.stern.de
