The Hessian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) filed a criminal complaint after the publication of secret NSU reports. The criminal complaint had been filed against unknown persons because of the illegal disclosure of classified documents, the authority announced on Monday in Wiesbaden. The Hessian State Criminal Police Office is now dealing with the investigation.
The “Ask the State” platform and the “ZDF Magazin Royale”, moderated by Jan Böhmermann, published the documents and put them on the Internet. The LfV’s criminal complaint is only directed against the illegal disclosure of the documents and not against their publication.
The Wiesbaden authorities stated that if they became aware of any indications that criminal offenses had been committed, they would in principle pass them on to the responsible law enforcement authorities, as was the case in this case. The documents are classified reports from the years 2013 and 2014. These are based on the result of a retrospective internal examination of the state of knowledge of the LfV Hessen from the period from January 1, 1992 to June 30, 2012. These are not so-called “NSU files”, but the reports “File review 2012 – Technical final report on the file review in the LfV Hessen” from December 19, 2013 and “Final report on the file review in the LfV Hessen in 2012” from November 20th 2014
Passing on classified information to unauthorized third parties constitutes a criminal offence
The two file review reports were available to the NSU investigative committee of the Hessian state parliament and were also fully available to the current investigative committee into the murder of North Hessian district president Walter Lübcke. In addition, all members of the Parliamentary Control Commission for the Protection of the Constitution have the opportunity to view the reports at any time. In addition, the Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution also made the file inspection reports available to other authorities for the fulfillment of their respective tasks, such as the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and the Hessian State Criminal Police Office.
The reports “could not and cannot” be published by the office for legal reasons because they are classified as classified information and contain classified findings from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and other authorities. This also includes knowledge that is subject to source protection. Passing on classified information to unauthorized third parties constitutes a criminal offence.
Federal government sees publication as problematic
Meanwhile, the federal government sees the publication as problematic. There are good reasons for classifying files, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin. Violations of this should not set a precedent. A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior explained that if classified files are published, it can be expected that something about the working methods of the security authorities can be deduced from them.
The “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) had been able to murder through Germany for years without being recognized. The victims of the right-wing terrorists were nine traders of Turkish and Greek origin and a German policewoman.