THREE MEN SENTENCED IN MUNICH PLUTONIUM TRIAL
On 17 July, a Munich criminal court sentenced three men involved in the so-called "Munich plutonium deal" (see FECL No.33:"'Operation Hades': intelligence service staged Plutonium deal") to prison. However, the undercover agents of the German Foreign Intelligence Service, BND, who were instrumental in staging the deal, were not even charged. The Munich verdict amounts to a blank cheque for covert agents, critics say.
The Bavarian Landesgericht sentenced the Columbian Justiniano Torres Benites to 5 years' imprisonment. Two Spanish accomplices, Julio Oroz Equia and Javier Bengochea got terms of three years, nine months, and three years, respectively.
Three other men deeply involved in the deal were not even among the accused in the trial. They are
- "Rafa", a Spanish police and under-cover agent hired by the BND, who staged the deal;
an "official" BND agent who was instrumental in negotiating the terms of the deal with the smugglers (according to unconfirmed reports, the man is however under criminal investigation); and
"Walter Boeden", an officer of the Landeskriminalamt (Bavarian Office of Criminal Prosecution) who acted as a bogus purchaser.
Commenting on the relatively lenient sentences, the President of the Court acknowledged that the three accused had been "seduced" to smuggle Plutonium as a direct result of what he called the "private provocation" of an under-cover agent ("Rafa"), that later was taken over by the police.
The three men were charged under a federal Act on the Control of Weapons of War. The Public Prosecutor had demanded imprisonment of up to six years.
The Munich sentence has given further rise to doubts on whether the Parliamentary Committee of Control was correctly informed. The Vice-President of the Liberal Party's (FDP) parliamentary group, Mr. Hirsh, pointed to the Munich judges' assessment that the Plutonium deal had been provoked from the very beginning. This has always been angrily denied by the BND and other agencies involved in the affair.
The President of the special parliamentary committee investigating the Plutonium scandal, Mr Bachmann (SPD), stressed that the Munich sentence clearly showed that the Federal Government's presentation of the facts had not been correct.
Mr Bachmann further complained that months after its creation, his investigating committee had still not received any of the documents and records necessary for conducting the investigation.
Sources: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 8/9.7.95, 18.7.95; our sources.Comment
According to Jürgen Seifert, a Hannover professor of law and political sciences (see FECL No.29: "The erosion of democracy through the predominance of the executive"), the Munich sentence is a new and disquieting illustration of "how far undercover agents are allowed to go in Germany today".
Indeed, the Munich sentence might soon be shown to constitute a dangerous precedent on a European level, by further paving the way for the ever more unrestricted use by police of covert agents acting as agents provocateurs , i.e. actively abetting to criminal offenses.
In view of plans in various countries (e.g. Switzerland) to legalise a wider use of under-cover agents, there are reasons for concern.
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