Hans-Georg Maaßen was back in the spotlight on Monday. The acting head of the constitutional protection said as a witness before the investigation committee of the Duesseldorfer Landtag to the terror case Amri. He rejected the accusation that his federal agency had concealed a V-man in the vicinity of the assassin Anis Amri.
"We had no V-persons in Anis Amri's environment and there was no intelligence monitoring by Amris through my agency," Maaßen said. At the same time he criticized the Foreign Office.
It was a mistake, in his view, that one had waited so long idly for the papers for Amri from Tunisia and therefore he could not be deported in time. "Then the Federal Foreign Minister has to order the Ambassador of Tunis," Maaßen said. Foreign Minister was in the period in question, today's Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The Islamist assassin Amri had raced in December 2016 in a truck in a Berlin Christmas market, had killed twelve people and injured dozens. It was the heaviest Islamist attack in Germany so far. He was later shot dead while fleeing in Italy by the police.
Federal agency allegedly played only supporting role in the case Amri
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had led a V-person in a mosque, which visited Amri occasionally. This person did not watch Amri and did not even recognize him in photos. "The V-person in the mosque, to our knowledge, had no contact with Amri and could not obtain one." Mosques of this kind would be frequented by hundreds of people. The mosque is said to have been the Berlin Fussilet Mosque.
Although the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had collected information about Amri, which it had received from other authorities, but did not draw any own conclusions that it could have passed on. In the case of Amri, the Federal Office played only a supporting role. Leading the police had been. An official of the Federal Office had told the Investigative Committee of the Bundestag in Berlin, however, that Amri had been observed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution with intelligence services.
Maaßen interviewed for two and a half hours
Maassen said there was a hint that Amri wanted to make attacks on Kalashnikovs. He did not develop any recognizable activities to get the weapons. That's why his dangerousness was not rated very high.
In the Islamist scene, there are many babblers and Schwadroneure, said Maassen in his well two and a half hours of interrogation. It is extremely difficult for analysts to distinguish chatter from serious announcements.
As a consequence of the Amri case, the rating system has been expanded to include the category mental lability. In addition, since then, people are increasingly using alien and asylum-seeking means against Islamist perpetrators.
"Run against the wall"
Maaßen defended that his authority did not start its own intelligence service Amris. It was a police case and the police have not asked his authority for assistance. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia was also "very efficient" and had its own source in the environment Amris had.
The police have repeatedly tried in the case of Amri to persuade the prosecutor to do something, but over and over again, "casually speaking, hit the wall," Maaßen said.