Enlarge image

Defense politician Strack-Zimmermann: “It’s inappropriate that you assume the opposite to me.”

Photo: Lisi Niesner / REUTERS

The chairwoman of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, defends herself against allegations that she may be partly responsible for passing on confidential information from the committee.

In a letter, the FDP politician rejected corresponding statements by Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD), who was surprised at the high number of participants at the meeting, as “inappropriate”.

The FDP politician told Bas that she "noticed with irritation" Bas's response to her report of a possible betrayal of secrets from the last special meeting.

The letter from Monday is available to SPIEGEL.

Strack-Zimmermann writes that Bas's statements contain "clear criticism of the exercise of my office as chairwoman with a view to maintaining confidentiality."

However, the FDP politician defended the high number of participants.

“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the group of people taking part in the committee meetings is not at my discretion,” said Strack-Zimmermann.

In addition to the MPs and representatives of the ministries, “speakers from the specialist level were also present in the meeting room to provide detailed answers,” wrote the defense expert.

The President of the Bundestag expressed surprise that 105 people took part in the meeting in question and that Strack-Zimmermann allowed this.

"In a conversation with the chairmen of all security-related committees in October, we agreed to keep the circle of participants as small as possible at meetings in which secret information was passed on," Bas continued in the "Welt".

As far as she was able, she intended to sensitize the affected departments in writing and ask them to re-examine the group of people sent by the government for classified agenda items and to reduce them as much as possible, Strack-Zimmermann now wrote.

In the next round of representatives, the participation of employees should also be discussed.

Bundestag wants to grant authorization for criminal prosecution

According to the FDP politician, she was extremely interested in protecting the meeting contents and filed numerous reports of alleged betrayal of secrets.

Strack-Zimmermann announced on Friday that he wanted to involve the public prosecutor.

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.

It is also said to have been 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.

The Bundestag announced on Monday: "The President of the Bundestag will authorize the prosecution of betrayal of secrets in the present case." This will happen at short notice in the usual procedure.

Since the beginning of the legislative period, 37 suspected cases of betrayal of secrets have been reported to the public prosecutor's office.

fek/kor/dpa