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Bundestag President Bärbel Bas

Photo: Jan Woitas/dpa

According to a media report, a hundred people were present at the secret meeting of the Defense Committee, from which information about the Taurus cruise missile was made public.

Bärbel Bas (SPD) has now expressed his irritation to the “Welt” about the process: “When I hear that 105 people took part in the meeting in question, then I can only be surprised that the chairwoman allowed this.”

In a letter, committee chairwoman Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP) informed Bas about the total of around 105 participants.

Also to make it clear that it was not only parliamentarians who could have leaked information - after all, "numerous representatives of the federal government and state representations" were also present.

The FDP politician asks Bas to authorize criminal prosecution for violation of official secrecy and a special duty of secrecy.

Bas told the "Welt": "In a conversation with the chairmen of all security-related committees in October, we agreed to keep the number of participants as small as possible at meetings in which secret information was passed on." Bas was incomprehensible how confidentiality could be established under these circumstances.

The background is a report from the news portal “T-Online”, which deals with the secret part of a special meeting of the Bundestag committee.

Accordingly, Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer spoke there on Monday last week about technical and operational procedures for targeting Taurus cruise missiles.

According to "T-Online", it was also said to be about the consequences of a Taurus delivery to Ukraine for Germany's security.

Ukraine, which has been attacked by Russia, has been demanding German Taurus cruise missiles to defend itself for months.

Strack-Zimmermann announced on Friday that he would contact the public prosecutor's office about the matter.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also spoke out in favor of clarification.

"Betrayal of secrets is something that must not take place," he said on Saturday.

mfh/dpa