The federal government has suspended its cooperation with trusted lawyers in Turkey after one of them was arrested there. The arrested lawyer is currently held in solitary confinement, said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office in Berlin. The Office does not have consular access to him because he is a Turkish citizen.
The Turkish lawyer was arrested in mid-September. The lawyer worked as a so-called cooperation lawyer for the embassy and checked information from Turks who have applied for asylum in Germany.
As SPIEGEL reported, files of 43 asylum seekers may have fallen into the hands of the Turkish authorities. The Federal Ministry of the Interior informed that this fact flows into the appraisal of the affected Turkish citizens. However, those affected can not be granted a flat-rate protection status, said a spokesman. Every application must be examined individually.
Collaboration with local lawyers has proven itself in many countries to obtain information about asylum seekers, said the spokeswoman for the Foreign Office. In Turkey, the ministry is currently no longer working with such lawyers.