The situation seemed hopeless. Week-long Sami had tried A. in vain to get one for his wife and children an appointment in the German Embassy in Beirut. The Syrians had travelled in the Winter of 2014 to secure Germany and now wanted to bring his family to. However, applying for a visa in the overcrowded Embassy was impossible to get any appointments. This hopeless-seeming Situation, an employee of the German diplomatic mission took advantage of apparently.
Through an intermediary in Germany, Sami A. was awarded with contact to a country man who worked as a so-called Local staff in the visa section of the German Embassy and the reproach of the investigator, the father of a family a simple Deal offered: an appointment for the wife for cash. Sami A. agreed. After a payment of 200 euros and bypassing all the rules in Local posts Mohamad J. is supposed to have the visit of the wife in the Embassy in the short term. For J. such transactions over the months were apparently a lucrative source of income.
The case is part of criminal proceedings, which will soon be brought before the jury the district court of Tiergarten in Berlin. According to the indictment, Mohamad J. between December 2014 and may 2015, a thriving operation of futures trading on their own account. E-Mails, text messages and testimony of witnesses to prove that J. and his middle-man in Germany, lived in at least eleven cases. It could have been much more: investigators discovered during their investigations in the period to 201 Visa applications in the Beirut Embassy, for which there is no entry in the official event database existed.
messages as the Achilles heel
The alleged bribery system in Beirut is no exception. In the Visa of many of the German missions abroad are running it for years, like clockwork. Regular employees of embassies and consulates, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe are in the focus of corruption investigations. The Germans apply to the Outpost as the Achilles heel of the politically become so important to combat trafficking of human beings – and are therefore a Problem for the state, does not want to appear to be in dealing with illegal Migration, no longer helpless.
at the beginning of the zero years of the so-called Visa-affair hit the headlines. At that time it was the theft of tens of thousands of entry permits to the German embassies in Kiev and in Kosovo. The grievances brought to the then green foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, in distress and have even led to a parliamentary investigation Committee.
many years later, the critical Situation in overmatched Visa seems to have departments not relaxed. Weak representations in the foreign employees of locally recruited staff, to Betticket which the messages are dependent. You earn in the normal case, less than their German colleagues. “There are also cultural differences,” says an experienced investigator, who was for many years specializing in appropriate cases of corruption. “In some countries there are other customs and practices”. Favors for money are often widely used. “They could drop leaflets all over the country, it will change little,” said the official.
Confidential information you want us to draw attention to grievances? You have explosive information? Then you can write to our Team Background and Recherche:spon.hur@spiegel.de Alternatively, you can contact the Team by post. Should you want encrypted communicate, please use this option via PGP.
The dark field of undetected cases is large, by the Federal foreign office control mechanisms were clearly only partially successful: “There is no approach to cure the Problem, really. The outside influences on the employees in foreign countries never to be combated effectively,” said the investigator. A fact that led stands in a mission abroad in Iraq, to considerable failure, as the MIRROR has revealed.
So it should be in the German General Consulate in the Iraqi Erbil in the past year, months of massive irregularities in the granting of visas to Syrian refugees. Internal investigations, according to the identified officials so far, about two dozen suspected cases between August and December 2017, in which requests for inclusion in the so-called land recording programs for Syrians manipulated. With the visas issued to refugees were able to travel easily by plane to Germany to apply for asylum here.
it is Unclear so far, whether it could also have been in Erbil not far more cases. The Berlin public Prosecutor’s office determined only in the past few weeks on suspicion of Smuggling of aliens. To several German-speaking Iraq are of local staff suspected to have, against payment, with Smugglers. The procedure of the public Prosecutor’s office was came at the end of October, after the MIRROR had confronted the Federal police with its investigations. From the foreign office, it was, you have already experienced in December 2017 irregularities in Erbil and organisational measures taken to prevent further cases. In addition, the investigative authorities have been notified “immediately”.
Also in the already accused in a case of alleged corruption in the German Embassy in Beirut journalistic spadework that led to the prosecution. The origin of this method is a contribution in the TV show “Monitor”, in the refugees in 2015, payments to members of the Embassy reported. After the broadcast, the authorities were able to identify the accused Syrians, Mohamad J. and his middle-man. The two men now live in Berlin, and will remain, for the time being. An inquiry to the allegations of the Prosecutor, the defender, Mohamad J. was unanswered. A date for the trial before the district court of Tiergarten, there is not yet.
collaboration: Jörg Diehl, Andrew Moussa
