Bavaria
Overthrow plans via Telegram: Public prosecutor searches the homes of AfD politicians
AfD supporters protest in Nuremberg against the corona measures
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Another Telegram group is being targeted by investigators. Two AfD politicians are said to have forged overturning plans online – which the public prosecutor has now called on the scene.
The internal Telegram group called “Alternative News Group Bavaria” is talking about upheaval, revolution and civil war. Now the apartments of two AfD politicians in Kulmbach and in the Upper Bavarian district of Miesbach have been searched. Cell phones and data carriers were already confiscated on Friday, as a spokesman for the Munich Public Prosecutor announced on Tuesday.
According to a spokesman for the General Prosecutor’s Office, the investigations are directed against two suspects. They are said to have spoken in the Telegram group, which consists of around 200 members, in December 2020 and thereby fulfilled the criminal offense of public incitement to criminal offenses.
AfD politician: “There is nothing to be found there”
the Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) had made the scandal public and quoted the sometimes radical content at the beginning of December. According to BR, large parts of the AfD parliamentary group, the Bavarian AfD Bundestag group and the state executive are also in the group. According to the BR report, a Bavarian AfD member of the state parliament is said to have written in this group: “I think that we will not get out of this number without civil war.”
Previously, the “Frankenpost“reported about searches in the house of a Kulmbach AfD politician.” They want to see whether what I’m accused of and what I’m denying can be found anywhere. But there is nothing to be found, “the newspaper quoted the man as saying.
The head of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament, Ulrich Singer, confirmed that neither the AfD nor the parliamentary group operate the chat group. “There is – or there was – a purely private, closed, regular-table chat that was run neither by the parliamentary group nor by the party,” he said in the state parliament at the beginning of December.
Investigators rely on complete chat history
In a turbulent state parliament debate, speakers from the CSU, Free Voters, Greens, SPD and FDP decidedly rejected the statements shortly after they became known. They accused the AfD of spreading hatred and agitation – and condemned the chat messages as an attack on democracy.
The investigators of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) and the Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Munich are now hoping to get information about the entire chat process from the confiscated cell phones.
“Whether the suspicion is confirmed can be assessed at the earliest after evaluating the evidence seized,” said the spokesman. “Then it can also be assessed whether other people may have committed a criminal offense.”