German journalists face prosecution over rendition documents

Seventeen German journalists from leading national publications are being investigated for having quoted from classified documents in covering the "rendition" of terror suspects. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent organization which is based in New York, has expressed its concern that the reporters were being targeted. The investigation, launched after the head of a parliamentary investigating committee complained about leaks to the press, also concerns several members of parliament. "We are deeply worried about the criminal proceedings launched against our German colleagues and call on state prosecutors to drop the probe immediately," said the CPJ head, Joel Simon. "With respect to the sensitivity of the information published, whoever leaked the classified documents should be investigated, not the journalists. It is their duty to publish matters of public interest. They should not be criminally charged for doing their job." At the root of the complaint is alleged German government complicity in CIA-run prisoner flights to countries where detainees were alleged to have been tortured. The CIA flights had stopovers in Germany. The parliamentary panel is also looking into the alleged involvement of the German foreign intelligence service BND with the CIA at the start of the Iraq War. The remit also includes investigating the kidnapping and rendition of Khalid el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin, and the detention at Guantánamo Bay of a German-born Turkish citizen Murat Kurnaz. The journalists under investigation for breach of secrecy include reporters for Der Spiegel, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and Die Welt. The editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel, Stefan Aust, who is under investigation with four of the weekly magazine's reporters, called the inquiry an attack on press freedom. German prosecutors confirmed the criminal investigation after the ARD television network broke the story on Aug. 3. A Free Democrat deputy, Max Stadler, accused the parliamentary panel of "going over the top" by complaining about the journalists who had "a duty to inform the public." The inquiry was launched after the head of the parliamentary investigating committee, Siegfried Kauder, told ARD: "You could read more from the classified documents in the press than what was available to the committee."