Chief Inspector Richard Graupner has a good relationship with his friend C. You send each other Whatsapp messages, say goodbye to each other, ask if you want to go for a drink, and become confidential: “Thank you, my friend.” When Graupner, until then head of a search group at the police in Schweinfurt, moves into the state parliament as a member of the AfD in 2018, C. sends him a special greeting. He congratulates his “Aryan friend”. However, his contact with C. brought Graupner to the dock in Schweinfurt on Wednesday. According to the public prosecutor’s office, as a police officer, he was guilty of violating official secrets – in favor of C. However, the proceedings ended with an acquittal. “In case of doubt, for the accused,” says the district judge in support of the verdict.
Graupner had already exuded optimism five hours earlier. He appears in court in a light blue suit and smiles winningly at the audience. In the state parliament, the 58-year-old is considered a smart guy, one from the right wing of the AfD, but one who does not fundamentally refuse to ask uncomfortable questions. Of course, Graupner prefers to remain silent in court; he does not even want to say anything about his personal circumstances. Avoid making mistakes, is obviously the motto. With his experience of 40 years of police service, Graupner knows from the files: This is a circumstantial process. And the circumstantial evidence is inconclusive on one essential point.
His friend C. started the process, one can assume: involuntarily. In January 2018, C. was involved in an argument with police officers who reported that he had been guilty of resisting law enforcement officers. C. again reported the officers for alleged bodily harm, so, as usual in such cases, the State Criminal Police Office investigated. C. told them, apparently rather casually: he had good friends in the police. They told him that there had been a change in the police’s internal information system. Allegedly at first there was talk of punches by C., later no more.
There was a tone of self-evident between the two
Good friends in the police force, information from the internal system? The LKA officials pricked up their ears and turned on the public prosecutor’s office. The found evidence that suggests that Graupner was the transmitter. He twice actively accessed the police information on his acquaintance. He was the only policeman from C.’s cell phone contacts to whom such active access can be proven. There was this friendly chat between C. and Graupner. And Graupner had apparently already gotten data for C. twice in the past, a tone of matter of course prevailed. “Please get me the address in Schweinfurt,” C. wrote to Graupner when he needed something. Once it was the personal details of a vehicle owner, once the address of a person C. wanted to send an invoice to.
That’s not enough for defense. The public prosecutor’s office did not present a single objective evidence that Graupner actually passed on data in the proceedings because of resistance to law enforcement officers. “No Whatsapp, no SMS, no phone call, nothing,” says the defense attorney. The public prosecutor, on the other hand, is satisfied with the facts and demands a fine of 21,000 euros.
But the judge does not agree. It was “possibly obvious” that Graupner was guilty of the acts he was accused of. But “residual doubts” remained. The magistrate considers it very likely that C. – who refused to testify due to investigations against himself – had an informant at the police station; that this was Graupner has not been proven.