Enlarge image
The Hamburg Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) was insulted on Twitter
Photo: Regina Wank / DPA
In the "Pimmelgate" affair surrounding the Hamburg Senator for the Interior Andy Grote (SPD), criticism of the judiciary's approach is growing.
A Hamburg district court had approved the search of the apartment of a suspect who is said to have insulted Grote as a "dick" via Twitter.
"I have the feeling that sparrows are being shot here with cannons," said Horst Niens, Hamburg's chief of the police union.
The decision of the court is "astonishing".
The renowned Hamburg criminal defense attorney Gerhard Strate criticized: "That is beyond any proportionality." It is "bad" that an investigating judge "issues such a search warrant."
The Hamburg chairman of the Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, Jan Reinecke, felt compelled to appeal: "We would like the judiciary to pursue insults against police officers as consistently as in the Grote case in the future."
A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office did not want to provide any details because of the ongoing proceedings.
She called the search on Wednesday proportionate and necessary.
The accused did not behave cooperatively.
"The mere determination that an accused is a user of the account from which criminal content was disseminated is generally not sufficient to provide evidence of the crime."
"I always advise everyone to file a complaint"
Grote told the NDR that he saw himself in the right.
»As a politician or a politically active person, you are constantly confronted with insults and malice on the Internet.
I always advise everyone to file a complaint so that it can be followed up. "
On May 30th, Grote criticized the celebrating crowds in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel on Twitter.
As reported by various media, including the »world«, this tweet triggered numerous reactions.
For example that of a user with the pseudonym »ZooStPauli«, the lower grotesque tweet made his own Twitter statement: »You are so 1 dick.«
Criminal complaint submitted later
According to the public prosecutor's office, the investigation was initially started "ex officio".
Since insulting is a crime that is only prosecuted at the request of the injured party, a criminal complaint was necessary.
"In the course of the proceedings, the injured party filed the necessary criminal complaint," the spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman was unable to provide any information on the question of how common a search warrant is in comparable cases.
Your authority does not have any figures on this.
The dpa news agency had reported that this year search warrants had already been issued in Hamburg after insults on the Internet in a middle double-digit number of proceedings.
The justice spokeswoman said the information came from the police.
These are estimates by the police officers involved.
Grote underlined in the NDR that in such cases there are more frequent house searches.
Grote himself came under criticism when he had a party with 30 people last year and thus violated corona regulations.
He had to pay a fine for this.
sms