Following the revelation of the illegal surveillance of at least seven journalists by the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Hanover public prosecutor's office will now also have to launch investigations against the intelligence service.
Journalist Andrea Röpke filed a criminal complaint today with the Hanover public prosecutor's office on suspicion of suppression of documents (§ 274 of the German Criminal Code). She was reacting to the destruction of her file without having been informed of its contents and thus the extent of the surveillance. According to its current president, Maren Brandenburger, the Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution collected information about the journalist for six years. However, after receiving a request for information in early 2012, the documents were deleted, and the journalist was lied to about the fact that she had been under surveillance.
“The file created by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution contained a document and data that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution was no longer permitted to access after receiving the request for information. Therefore, by obstructing the right to information, the criminal offense of suppression of documents was likely committed,” said lawyer Sven Adam, who filed the criminal complaint on behalf of Andrea Röpke.
The criminal complaint is just one of the legal measures being taken to uncover and prosecute the background and extent of the surveillance and the destruction of the file. In addition to a complaint against the case officer responsible for the information request, who apparently lied at the time, the intelligence service has been ordered to disclose all currently available information regarding the storage of data on the journalist. Furthermore, the file that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution maintained on Röpke for six years is to be reconstructed and also made public.
Other German intelligence agencies will also have to disclose whether Röpke was the target of intelligence activities there as well. "Due to the alarming findings in the Lower Saxony case, we have also requested information from all 16 other Offices for the Protection of the Constitution in Germany regarding the personal data they hold on Ms. Röpke," Adam concluded.
