The UK-German conspiracy surrounding police spies must be exposed!

Thursday, den 20. Oktober 2011 um 10:25 Uhr

“Action must be taken – including in Germany – following the wave of condemnation in the United Kingdom in the wake of new revelations concerning police spies who operated across international borders,” Andrej Hunko, Member of the German Bundestag, has demanded in view of the cancellation of publication of a police report on Mark Kennedy, a police spy who was also active in Germany.

The long-awaited report of an inquiry into British police spy Mark Kennedy was due to be published today. Kennedy, like other undercover police officers, had entered into sexual relationships with people he was spying on and committed crimes. Kennedy was also active in Germany.

Andrej Hunko said:

“Yesterday the Guardian reported that the police spies were instructed by their superiors to maintain their cover even when appearing in court accused of a crime. Several undercover officers have lied to the courts in this way, and even testified under oath.

Ehrhart Körting, Senator of the Interior in Berlin, confirmed at a meeting of the Committee on Internal Affairs on 24 January 2011 that Mark Kennedy was on record with the police in Berlin under his false identity. After he was arrested for committing arson, he even lied to the public prosecution office.

Police officers are not allowed to commit crimes in Germany. When I asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs about this, I was told only that the matter had been “discussed with the responsible authorities on the British side”. I am not satisfied with that answer. However, I received no reply to my subsequent questions, not even when I asked who the “responsible authorities” were.

In addition, the contradiction between statements made by the Senator of the Interior in Berlin and Mark Kennedy must be clarified: Senator Ehrhart Körting claimed that Kennedy only worked on his cover in Berlin, while Kennedy himself has said that he gathered evidence while in Berlin.

The increasingly frequent practice by police forces in Europe of sending undercover officers to each other’s countries is primarily a German and British approach and undermines democratic standards. This is shown most recently by the submission by a bilateral delegation to the negotiations on the future European Investigation Order at EU level: the UK and Germany are proposing that undercover operations be omitted from the negotiations on the Directive. This would mean, however, that the prosecution of crimes committed by police spies would remain difficult.

I call on the British government to publish all files on the operations of British undercover police officers in Germany and to notify those who were affected by these operations.

An official but independent inquiry into the police spies conspiracy must finally be launched in Germany, too.”