The federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism is a thing of the past, but the alleged misconduct of some ex-top officials has had quite an aftermath. The abuse of office trial continued on Thursday with the questioning of then BVT director Peter Gridling. The accusations are harsh.
The suspects are accused of harboring a Syrian general in Austria and granting him asylum despite the lack of legal requirements. The suspects repeatedly pointed out in their interrogations that they either knew nothing or were simply following instructions because of their rank. “If I get an illegal instruction, I have to draw attention to it,” says Gridling.
tensions and competition
The fact that information “passed” him directly to the Director General of Public Security was nothing out of the ordinary. Although his deputy was not required to inform him of the cooperation agreement at the time, “that would have been absolutely necessary in terms of responsibility”.
This deputy sheriff in turn would have received his information from department head Martin W., who was initially charged but could not stand trial due to illness. Gridling emphasized that there was “tension and competition” between the department head and his superior, the deputy director BVT. In the end he could not explain why he had not been informed.
The Syrian general is accused of complicity in the torture of opponents of the Syrian regime in a prison in Raqqa. Meanwhile, the Vienna public prosecutor’s office is also investigating what is happening in the Syrian prison.
Martin W.’s deputy at the time stated that he was in an “amicable” relationship with his superior at the time the allegations were made. That changed in the course of the BAT process and the sometimes ‘disturbing’ issues that emerged.
doubts about credibility
The NGO Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), which approached the Ministry of Justice in 2016 and raised concerns about the general’s past, was also at the center of the investigation. “It is a virtue of the intelligence service to be open to people,” emphasizes P. The intelligence officers nevertheless tried to verify the information from the CIJA, also because they doubted the credibility of the organization. “We wanted to know who this organization is, what interests it represents and who is behind it.”
However, P. cannot remember that he or anyone else has conducted research into the organization in freely accessible sources (OSINT research). “An investigation of whether the CIJA is reliable would have been done in 30 minutes,” senior prosecutor Ursula Schmudermayer points out.
“Don’t Bring Tires”
Instead, a BVT employee went to the Netherlands as part of Operation Red Bull to take pictures of the alleged headquarters of the organization on behalf of department head W.. The former spy chief P. passed on the order alone. He doesn’t remember what questions he asked her afterwards.
No inquiries were made with foreign intelligence services. “If I ask where, I need to know that I am going to trigger something with the partner service.” Another BBT-related process is also about to start. As the magazine “Profil” reported online Thursday, charges against a BVT officer who allegedly received money from a German news outlet with a Stasi past for private investigation took legal effect. A date for the negotiations in St. Pölten has not yet been set.
Source: Krone
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