The Hessian Domestic Secret Service – Lots of questions remain unanswered

Today and tomorrow, the court is concerned above all with the Hessian Domestic Secret Service. Today, a supervisor of former secret service agent Temme was questioned in court. Tomorrow the former head of the office will testify, as will Temme himself once more. Temme’s direct supervisor is currently ill and will testify at a later date.

The first piece of evidence, however, was a video from 2006 in which the police the police tried to reconstruct Temme’s movement in the Internet café in Kassel where Halit Yozgat was killed. Most importantly, the video showed him turning to leave the store, then returning and putting some money on the counter, leaning over the counter due to his height. Accordingly, this film again shows that Temme must have seen the dead or dying Halit Yozgat lying behind the counter. His claims not to have seen anything thus become ever less believable.

That Temme’s statements simply make no sense also became clear when his supervisor testified. According to her, she had asked Temme a few days after the murder to ask the state security branch of the criminal police whether they had any clues regarding that crime – the domestic secret service had tried to find out whether there was an Islamist background to the murder given that the murder victim had been a “Turkish cohabitant.” She claimed that Temme had stated that the murder could be part of a killing spree, but that she did not remember when he had said so and what he had based that statement on – in any event, she had not asked him any questions.

According to the witness, Temme had not told her that he had been in the Internet café –secret service officers were generally barred from using such cafés since they were usually situated “in areas where there were many foreigners”. Her testimony again showed the low standards of intelligence and the amount of racism that was common in the Hessian domestic secret service.

Her testimony also runs directly counter to some of Temme’s claims – he had claimed that, while he had visited the criminal police shortly after the murder, he had only talked about the murder in passing. He had also stated that he was only barred from using the specific internet café where the murder later took place, for the rather more concrete reason that it was close to a mosque that was frequented by persons who were under observation.

At the same time, the testimony today also contradicts written memos of other secret service personnel concerning their discussions with Temme. The Hessian secret service has thus been a guarantor of confusion rather than of elucidation of the facts.

One aspect of her testimony which was quite remarkable and which can probably serve as benchmark for the quality of the entire office concerns the way that Temme – the witness who lied to the police and led them astray over a period of months and who claims until this day that he “saw nothing” – was seen by his supervisors and colleagues: to them he was ambitious, hardworking, some had even seen him as a role model. Enough said.