NEW ROW OVER MUNICH PLUTONIUM DEAL
The top coordinator of Germany's secret services, Bernd Schmidbauer, has come under fire again for his alleged role in a plutonium deal staged by the BND, the Foreign Intelligence Service (see FECL No.33: "'Operation Hades': intelligence service staged Plutonium deal").
At a press conference on 15 December, Mr Schmidbauer, Minister of State at the Federal Chancellery in charge of coordinating the numerous German intelligence services, sharply rejected new accusations by the German media. According to recent press reports, Mr Schmidbauer was informed in advance about a spectacular case of plutonium smuggling in August 1994 and actually staged the deal, involving a number of dubious Russian and Spanish "business men" and covert agents acting for the BND and German criminal investigation authorities. Moreover, some newspapers claimed that the Secretary of State had personally arranged for a fee to be payed to "Rafa", a Spanish secret service man hired as an informer by the BND.
In 1995, the revelation of the BND's involvement in the smuggling case led to a parliamentary committee of investigation being set up. The committee has still not concluded its work.
The new press accusations are mainly based on an office memorandum written by an official of the Federal Foreign Department. The note, made in October 94, referred to the plutonium deal and said the case was "problematic", since - "even according to the BND's own account" - it was "not only uncovered, but to a great extent staged" by German intelligence services. In addition to this, the Spanish BND informer, "Rafa", has claimed before the parliamentary committee investigating the case that he was pressed by the BND to give false evidence.
At the press conference, Mr Schmidbauer stressed that he learned about the planned deal only on 25 July 1994, that he had not influenced the operation at any time, and that he was informed about the plutonium transport on 11 August 1994, a day after the seizure of the plutonium and three smugglers in Munich. According to the Social-Democrat members of the investigating committee, Schmidbauer was actually informed on 7 August, at the latest, of the BND's plan to bring the plutonium into Germany.
At the press conference, the Secretary of State distributed a voluminous dossier to journalists with hitherto classified documents which, according to him, prove his innocence. One of the documents is an office memorandum referring to the remuneration of "Rafa". It says that Mr Schmidbauer should not be "directly informed" about the payment.
Mr Schmidbauer accused some journalists of "manipulating information" and hunting him "like a rabbit". He strongly denied that he had any plans to step down.
The Secretary of State's counter-attack, however, does not seem to have convinced all of the German press. There is still a strong belief among investigating journalists that Mr Schmidbauer had an obvious political interest in staging a spectacular operation of the police and the security services shortly before the 1994 parliamentary elections in Germany and as a means to speed up European police cooperation.
Sources: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 16/17.12.95; our sources.