Exclusive
As of: December 6th, 2021 5:37 pm
In a police operation in 2020, special forces arrested a Bundeswehr soldier – and security authorities investigated him for months. Now, according to information from NDR and WDR the investigation stopped.
Special police units surrounded and overwhelmed soldier Matthias D. on the open road in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in autumn 2020 – the suspicion: preparation of a serious act of violence that could endanger the state. Now the Rostock public prosecutor’s office has, according to information from NDR and WDR the investigation stopped. A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office and a Bundeswehr spokesman confirmed this on request.
The sensational procedure had occupied numerous German security authorities for months. The Bundeswehr’s Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD), for example, used extensive surveillance measures to screen the soldier who is said to have been involved in numerous secret commando operations for Germany over the past few decades.
Your allegation: The soldier who is active in the martial arts scene and offers training is said to have trained the right-wing extremist Tom S. from the environment of the right-wing extremist “White Wolves Terror Crew” along with many other martial artists.
The “White Wolves Terrorcrew” was a violence-oriented neo-Nazi group that was banned in 2016 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Matthias D. rejects these allegations against him. Opposite to NDR and WDR he stated that his contact with Tom S. was just one of many acquaintances as part of his hobby.
Visit to Asgaard in Hamm
The MAD investigators were particularly alarmed when the trained combat swimmer and former elite soldier also attended a meeting of the controversial security company Asgaard in Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia, in July 2020. The company is currently the focus of investigations after a former employee alleged that the company had plans to overthrow and alleged murderous fantasies against a left-wing politician.
Asgaard’s management rejects these allegations – in September the special forces of the police also approached Matthias D., arrested him briefly and searched his apartment.
Travel to Iraq and Lebanon
Months later, when the investigation against the soldier was underway and he was suspended from the Bundeswehr and on sick leave, D. accompanied a businessman from the Asgaard area to Lebanon and Iraq – according to his own statement, without having been paid for it. German intelligence services closely monitored everything: They followed the soldier’s activities, and the Mecklenburg-West Pomeranian authorities recorded an exit ban for Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon in his passport.
And so the dazzling case occupied numerous German authorities, including the Customs Criminal Police Office, which according to information from NDR and WDR examined the financial flows – also because the man is now in an environment that is of great interest to the intelligence services. The security company Asgaard had meanwhile been commissioned to ensure the security of the Saudi embassy in Iraq until it broke up in a company dispute – the best template for a spy thriller on the international stage.
The serious allegations against Matthias D., however, who, according to his own statement, is now in psychological treatment, could not be substantiated according to the Rostock public prosecutor.
Possible penalty order for doping possession
However, the process is not over, because during the search in the house of the Bundeswehr soldier, investigators also found anabolic steroids – and so the soldier is threatened with information from NDR and WDR now a penalty order in the amount of 150 daily rates for illegal doping possession. If the penalty order becomes legally binding, D. has a previous conviction and would probably have to leave the armed forces. The soldier wants to take action against the penalty order. He says the drug seized was not his.
Further measures against D.
In the meantime, numerous disciplinary measures are still in progress in the Bundeswehr. For example, Matthias D. is accused of violating secondary employment regulations and of his obligation to notify when leaving the country during the employment relationship. He rejects this.
For the security authorities, the soldier will remain of interest in both cases: within the Bundeswehr under the responsibility of the military counterintelligence service – and outside the Bundeswehr in the field of vision of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. That is interested in information from NDR and WDR continue to work intensively for the Asgaard company and its international relationships.