BND process
Diamonds, brothel visits, trips to Moscow: a spy crime thriller is being performed before the Berlin Court of Appeal
View into the hall of the Berlin Court of Appeal, where the BND trial is being heard
© Clemens Bilan/Getty Images
In the Berlin trial on suspicion of Russian espionage by a BND employee, one of the two defendants is happy to provide information: how one of the most spectacular German espionage cases is said to have happened.
It is a gripping story that the young man tells at the witness table in room 145a of the Berlin Court of Appeal. It’s about a chance acquaintance with an employee of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) on a sports field in Weilheim, Bavaria, of visits to brothels and casinos, of photographed secret files and hasty trips to Moscow, of threats from Russian secret agents, of a hoped-for career as an undercover agent and lucrative business in Africa. And there’s a lot more. But one after anonther.
Did BND employees deliver state secrets to Russia?
Artur E., 32 years old, has been on trial in Berlin for exactly a month in one of the most spectacular German espionage trials – together with 53-year-old Carsten L., the same BND employee that E. said he met in May 2021 Met Weilheim. According to the indictment, both are said to have supplied state secrets to the Russian secret service FSB during Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022 and received hundreds of thousands of euros in return. Both are accused of treason.
The difference between the two: Carsten L. is silent. Wearing a jacket and blue shirt, the BND man sits in the dock in the secured glass box on every day of the trial; his face looks thinner and grayer from time to time. Artur E., on the other hand, seems tidy and willing to provide information. He has already told investigators his version of events. Now he is presenting them in court. In return, the young man with the bald head, always dressed in black, is allowed to come out of the glass box to the witness table. He leans back in the chair, seemingly relaxed. Here he has all the attention and the authority to interpret. Only under the table do feet tap in jogging shoes.
As I said, the case is about state secrets and treason; it is internationally explosive and represents a serious setback for the BND. With E., however, it sounds like a harmless adventure at times. You have to keep this in mind: someone here is also talking in the hope of a more lenient sentence.
Casino and brothel visits come to light
His oral statement on Wednesday of this week already contains a confusing number of details – including references to joint visits to casinos and a Berlin brothel (self-promotion: “You will be greeted with a smile by our nice ladies at the reception.”) On the other hand, stay in There are so many gaps in E.’s story that the presiding judge, Detlev Schmidt, draws up a strategic plan for the questioning. Schmidt first examines the most important key points – dates, locations, processes.
If you leave out all the garlands, E. presents the matter like this: He himself, who once came to the Federal Republic of Germany with his parents as Russian-Germans, is hoping for a lucrative business in Africa with a Russian acquaintance, the entrepreneur Visa M. He in turn has Visa M a problem: The Russian wants a permanent residence permit in Germany; he doesn’t want to tackle the African business beforehand.
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E. wants to get the obstacle off the table when he thinks of his friend from the BND: Couldn’t he do something for M.? Three people meet. The Russian entrepreneur announces that a “buddy” has been appointed Russian Minister for Civil Protection and that, if necessary, they can do “something good for each other,” E. says. Contact with Russia has therefore been initiated.
As the story progresses, E. – always according to his own account – becomes interested in working as a source for the BND himself. This is followed by meetings with co-defendant L. and a BND liaison officer. But his career as an “NDV” (intelligence service liaison) is also lame. Then, the story continues, one day Carsten L. calls and says: “I have something for Russia.”
Questionnaire on military secrets
Now everything is supposedly happening very quickly. E. meets L. in Pullach, photographs “Listen” and flies to Moscow on the same day, hands the material over to a man there. E. allegedly believes it is someone from the Ministry of Civil Protection. At another meeting the next day, this time with two men, it becomes clear to him: It is the FSB secret service. One of the agents shows his weapon. “Psycho games,” says E. The “lists” are apparently of little interest; instead, the Russian agents provide a list of questions about military secrets.
It supposedly continues like this: Back in Germany, E. gets another call, this time from Moscow. They want new “lists”, even though the first ones supposedly weren’t that exciting. E. gets the new material from L. Back to Moscow, handover again. E. returns with “envelopes”, about DIN A4 size, as he says. What’s in it? The presiding judge Schmidt doesn’t get that far in the first round of questions. Schmidt proceeds with the process very carefully, attentively and patiently, but also in very small stages. That should take time.
But the people in the courtroom already know from E. that he keeps not only money and papers in a locker, but also a few diamonds, that his wife is employed by the businessman Visa M., that the family sometimes goes to Monaco, sometimes to Miami was on the road and he was always on the go anyway.
Carsten L.’s defense attorney, Johannes Eisenberg, called Artur E. an “imposter” right at the beginning of the trial. In defense of his silent client, Eisenberg is initially left with little other than attacks on the credibility of the person making the statement and motions regarding the proceedings. Above all, he demands relief from prison for Carsten L. He is being held in “torture-like” solitary confinement and is suffering. If this continues, L. will soon be unable to stand trial, says Eisenberg.