The Schleswig-Holstein Interior Minister Hans-Joachim Grote (CDU) has taken an unusual step in a criminal case against a police official. As a spokesman for the ministry confirmed the SPIEGEL, Grote received on Tuesday last week Thomas Nommensen, the vice of the German police union in Schleswig -Holstein, for a four-eye conversation.
The public prosecutor Kiel accuses Nommensen secret betrayal, at the end of of August let them search several objects, including his private dwelling. Nommensen denies the allegations. Immediately after the four-eye conversation with the accused Grote turned over his departmental head to the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA), which conducts the investigation on behalf of the Kiel prosecutor.
Questions to the state criminal police
"The questions mainly related to the course of action and the conditions of the investigation," said a LKA spokeswoman SPIEGEL.
About his department head, the minister should also have questioned whether the responsible chief investigator in the LKA for the task of the right person - so it was at least perceived in the State Criminal Police Office. The SPIEGEL learned from several independent sources.
The LKA spokeswoman responded to this on demand, it was basically no comments on details from meetings from and would neither confirm nor deny. The Ministry of Interior spokesman said there was no question about the suitability of the chief investigator.
The spokesman said that at the end of the four-on-one conversation Nommensen had "handed over" documents to the minister, which would have resulted in "allegations of another employee in the Department of the Interior Ministry".
Grote could not ignore these allegations and therefore asked his department head "to try to establish a basic level of information". Grote was concerned with "giving the competent authorities the opportunity to deal with questions of any need for action on their own responsibility". Details did not mention the speaker.
"No Go"
The Kiel officials lawyer Josef Konrad Rogosch sees interference of the Interior Minister critical. "A conversation about content is a no go." The judiciary alone has "to decide on a highly explosive procedure". "It is not up to the Minister of the Interior to interfere."
A spokesman for the ministry emphasized that Grote, as the highest official of the police, was available to all employees as a contact person - "in particular as part of his duty of care". Nommensen would have asked for the personal interview because of the burdens of the procedure. The Minister has made clear that "he will not comment on the ongoing investigation."
The case has sparked a big echo in Schleswig-Holstein. Nommensen is considered a sharp critic of the police leadership in the country. The background is the so-called rocker affair, which deals with a parliamentary committee since last year, a committee of inquiry. These are accusations of file manipulation and cover-up in rocker investigations.
The rooms of the German police union in Kiel were searched at the end of August and hard disks were read out. The leadership of the union made it clear that she had been asked in early April for a discussion in the Ministry of the Interior with the three top officials of the state police.
The three chairmen of the DPolG, including Nommensen, had been threatened with "employment and criminal consequences" whether their continued public assessment of the Rocker affair, said the Kiel DPolG Vice Frank Hesse. The Kiel Ministry of the Interior denied these threats.
Rocker affair in the state parliament
Two former rocker investigators allege that they were bullied for insisting on proper record keeping. The incident occurred in 2010, the affair simmered for years within the police, until 2017, the state parliament.
Grote joined two years ago as Minister of the Interior of the new Jamaican coalition. One of his first acts was also an indirect response to the affair: In November 2017, he deposed the most powerful police chiefs in the country. Nommensen stood in the rocker affair to the side of the two former investigators. Again and again he attacked the new police headquarters.
The Kiel prosecutor has been conducting the criminal proceedings against Nommensen since mid-June, as the Chief Prosecutor Birgit Hess reported. Accordingly, it is about Nommensen in his role as police superintendent in Lübeck.
In May or June 2019, he is said to have passed on details of the dismissal of a police officer to third parties as a member of the main personnel council in Lübeck.
Information about hostage taking
In connection with a hostage-taking in a prison in Lübeck on June 17, he should also "unauthorized disclosed to third parties information about the alleged hostage-takers and circumstances of the crime." The recipient of the information should also have been the "Kieler Nachrichten".
Nommensen's lawyer, the Kiel criminal lawyer Michael Gubitz, questioned whether there was any suspicion at all. "The raid could also have served to investigate and intimidate a critical trade unionist." Attorney General Hess said: "The prosecutor investigates according to their legal mandate."
Attorney Gubitz said that in both cases, the allegations are accused of dozens of officials having access to the data in question. Nommensen had demonstrably no access to any of the information.
Gubitz also criticized the importance attached to the statement of a police caregiver. The pastor wanted to watch how Nommensen chatted with a journalist during a public event.
But this chat, according to the lawyer, has nothing to do with the alleged cases of secret betrayal. Nommensen had maintained as a press spokesman for the union chat contact with the journalist.
Attorney General Hess said: "The pastor is witness to an incident that is important for clarifying the facts."
A special meaning for the procedure might have in the future interior minister Grote. Prosecutor Hess told the SPIEGEL: Because of the conversation with Nommensen "the minister now has a witness role".
Nommensen and the union have independently filed complaints against the searches, which now require judicial rulings. As long as the confiscated data can not be evaluated.
