The Munich I public prosecutor’s office has stopped its investigations into Taufkirchen’s mayor Ullrich Sander (independent) in connection with the e-mail affair in the town hall. “Proof of a crime could not be provided with the certainty required for an indictment,” the authority said in a letter to Jörg Pötke. The former mayor initiated the investigation with a complaint. He has now appealed the decision to the Attorney General’s Office. These are based on “unproven and inconclusive allegations by the accused as well as assumptions,” argues Pötke. Meanwhile, Mayor Sander emphasized in the municipal council that he considers the matter “closed” – especially since the Bavarian State Commissioner for Data Protection has not been able to find any allegations against him.
The trigger for the e-mail affair was Pötkes’ accusation that his successor in office was reading private e-mails sent to members of the municipal council. As evidence, the former mayor cited an out-of-office notice that he received from Sander’s account in response to an email he sent to a local councilor to her address ending @taufkirchen-mucl.de. The investigation by an IT security company came to the conclusion that an earlier filter rule was probably responsible for the incorrect delivery, according to which all Pötke e-mails to city hall employees should also be blind copied to the mayor – but not e-mails to the city hall addresses of the municipal council members.
Against Taufkirchen’s mayor Ullrich Sander is no longer determined.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
These have now been converted, said Sander in the municipal council. “This ensures that e-mails to you do not go through any of the community’s storage media.” The filter rule has also not been active for a long time. Pötke’s suspicion that Sander had read his earlier emails had always been denied by the head of the town hall. The public prosecutor’s office now states that “objectively there has been a violation of data protection”. However, the investigations “had not revealed any indications for the assumption that this would have been brought about intentionally by the accused or other persons”. Likewise, there is nothing to indicate that Sander knew about the technical error or consciously exploited it, according to the public prosecutor.