Advance requested in the amount of 17 million euros
The accused ex-entrepreneur was accused of having offered the Federal Ministry of Health FFP2 and FFP3 protective masks for sale through a bona fide middleman in 2020. He asked for an advance of 17 million euros for the delivery, but was never able to deliver. However, the Federal Ministry of Health rejected the offer and no payments were made to the accused. In the course of another trial last year before the Osnabrück Regional Court, the accused is said to have untruthfully claimed that he personally met the Federal Minister of Health at the time when initiating a deal for disinfectants that were to be delivered alongside the masks. He indicated that he expected a personal financial stake in the business.
Deliberately false statement
The LG has now convicted the accused of defamation of a public figure. The chamber found that the defendant did in fact describe an alleged meeting with the then Federal Minister of Health in 2020 in another hearing before the chamber last year. The accused deliberately untruthfully claimed that the minister had indicated that he expected personal benefits from possible dealings between the Federal Ministry of Health and the accused. In fact, according to the chamber’s findings, there never was such a face-to-face meeting. There was also never a statement from the minister to the effect that he expected personal benefits from doing business with the accused. The defendant was aware of this when he gave a different description in the earlier hearing before the Osnabrück Regional Court. With his untruthful description, he consciously accepted that he would slander the former minister and deny him the integrity required for a public office.
Slander, but not false suspicion
The chamber based its findings on the fact that in the current proceedings the accused himself continued to claim that he had personally met the minister in 2020. However, as the accused had now explained, he no longer knew whether the minister or a third party had expressed a desire for the minister to participate financially and whether the minister was even present when this statement was made. From the Chamber’s point of view, the further taking of evidence showed that this was also incorrect and that the personal meeting had not taken place. The chamber considered the offense of defamation of a public figure to have been fulfilled by the course of the crime established. On the other hand, there is no false suspicion. It cannot be established with the necessary degree of certainty that the defendant’s earlier statements were intended to initiate criminal investigations against the former minister.
8 months imprisonment without parole
The court sentenced the defendant to eight months’ imprisonment. The court justified the sentence by saying that defamation of a public figure is always punishable by imprisonment. In the defendant’s favour, it should be taken into account that he at least partially revised his earlier description of the alleged meeting with the minister. In addition, the accused has been in custody for almost three years on another matter. To his detriment, it had to be taken into account that at the time he made the defamatory statements about the minister, he already had a criminal record and other serious criminal charges against him were pending. With a view not least to these further allegations against the accused, a suspended sentence on probation is out of the question, the chamber continued.
Section of the proceedings relating to allegations of fraud separated
The Chamber has now separated the part of the proceedings relating to the allegation of fraud and suspended the proceedings to that extent. This means that these allegations may be heard again at a later date. With this decision, the chamber complied with a request from the public prosecutor’s office. This had argued that the previous taking of evidence had not been able to conclusively clarify the allegations of fraud. More witnesses from abroad would probably have to be heard. According to the assessment of the public prosecutor’s office, which the court agreed, it was no longer possible to summon them in time during the ongoing proceedings. According to the court, the judgment that has now been passed is independent of the judgment by the Osnabrück Regional Court against the defendant, which was announced last year and is not legally binding, because of allegations in connection with the development of wind farms. From the Chamber’s point of view, a combination of the penalties from both proceedings to form a total sentence was out of the question for legal reasons.
on LG Osnabrück, judgment of March 24, 2023
Editor beck-aktuell, Esther Wiemann, March 24, 2023.
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