German federal prosecutor drops treason probe of ‘Netzpolitik’ journalists
Germany’s acting federal prosecutor has terminated an investigation into two journalists on suspicion of treason. He said he had concluded that the information they had published did not contain state secrets.
In an online statement issued on Monday, the acting chief federal prosecutor, Gerhard Altvater, said he had concluded, in concordance with the Justice Ministry, “that the content published was not a state secret” as defined by the German Criminal Code.
The two journalists from the Internet blog netzpolitik.org, Markus Beckedahl and Andreas Meister (pictured above), were tapped for a probe on suspicion of treason after publishing leaked documents detailing plans by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to expand Internet surveillance, particularly of social media.
Although the probe into the two journalists has been dropped, the statement said proceedings would continue against persons unknown who might have violated official secrecy laws by passing on the documents to the journalists. These proceedings would be put in the hands of the relevant prosecutors, the statement said.
The Netzpolitik affair created a heated debate on press freedom in Germany and led to former Federal Prosecutor Harald Range being forced into early retirement on Tuesday. Range was removed from his post by Justice Minister Heiko Maas after Range accused Maas of political interference in the investigation.
Amid widespread outrage at news of the treason probe, seen by many as an assault on freedom of the press, Maas had publicly voiced doubts that the journalists’ actions constituted treason. The minister also stopped a legal assessment of the case, which Range had commissioned to determine whether the documents’ publication amounted to treason.
tj/sms (dpa, Reuters, AFP)
