“Espionage affair” – Quoted from secret files: Pilz convicted

The trial against the current publisher of the online medium zackzack.at had already started in July. Pilz was accused of prohibited publication and defamation. Due to the prohibited disclosure, a fine of 3,600 euros – of which 2,400 euros was conditional – was imposed.

Examine after the end of immunity of mushrooms
The proceedings included charges that are already 24 years old and are now being dealt with too late because Pilz initially enjoyed parliamentary immunity as a representative of the Greens and later for the JETZT list he founded. The investigation was only reopened after he left politics.

In the ‘espionage affair’, which involved illegal data retrieval from the police computer allegedly created on behalf of the FPÖ, Pilz cited disciplinary files covered by official secrecy in October 2000, as well as eight years later in connection with investigations into the Natascha Kampus case.

Pilz presented the public with the findings of the disciplinary committee of the Ministry of the Interior. At the start of the trial, Pilz said this was not a violation of the law, but rather part of his job as an MP. Mandatory officials would not be able to do their work if they were subject to ‘grags’ such as civil service law.

However, the judge saw it differently. The regulations would apply to everyone, he emphasized. This can be compared to a rape case where the public was excluded. No one is allowed to report on this either.

Acquitted of the charge of defamation
Pilz was acquitted of the defamation charge on Monday. The accusation was based on a complaint that the Ministry of the Interior, at the time led by Herbert Kickl (FPÖ), had filed against Pilz because they felt denigrated in a press release in April 2018. In it, Pilz described the deportation of an Afghan refugee as an “official assassination attempt” and assumed that the authorities would extradite the man “to his executioners and his stoners in Afghanistan”. Pilz assured the court a few months ago at the start of the trial that this represented an “acute danger” to the asylum seeker.

Pilz pointed out that the decision by which the man was taken into custody before deportation and subsequently deported from the country was later revoked as unlawful. The Afghan man’s asylum file was also obtained, mainly because Pilz had accused the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) of “deliberately producing a transcript full of falsehoods” and “falsifying crucial facts” in order to deport the man .