Court of Appeal - Trial against BND employee temporarily without the public
In the trial against a BND employee for alleged Russian espionage, the Berlin Court of Appeal temporarily excluded the public on Thursday in order to protect state secrets. Otherwise, there was a risk of "endangering Germany's state security", said presiding judge Detlev Schmidt, explaining his decision. The defense protested against the secrecy of trial details and therefore questioned the entire trial.
The accused are 53-year-old BND employee Carsten L. and 32-year-old businessman Arthur E. as an alleged accomplice. They are alleged to have jointly passed on secret information to the Russian secret service FSB. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office is accusing them of treason in a particularly serious case. The two Germans are in custody.
Journalists and spectators were excluded from the reading of three pages of the indictment, which dealt with details of the accusations and the nature of the secrets. Lawyer Johannes Eisenberg, Carsten L.'s defense lawyer, said that his client was not in a position to defend himself sufficiently due to the secrecy. He was facing a "huge apparatus of power" alone.
Eisenberg denied the allegations against his client. "The alleged betrayal did not take place," said the lawyer. He questioned the statements of the co-defendant businessman, who was an "impostor". The BND, in turn, had participated in the "defamation" of its employee.
The defence of the co-defendant businessman E. revealed that he had identified himself as a "source of the BND" at customs during a trip to the USA. US authorities had then questioned him. E. had voluntarily decided to return to Germany. He had also made a significant contribution to clearing up the case, said lawyer Giuseppe Olivo.
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Source: www.stern.de
