Documentation of a public prosecutor's working methods — based on the parliamentary investigation report (Drucksache 18/4000) and sworn affidavits from proceedings 522 Ks 5/23.
Senior Public Prosecutor Klaus Michael Wachs is one of the central figures of the Berlin Prosecutor General's Office. For many years he has handled cases in the area of political extremism and Islamist terrorism, and represented the Berlin prosecution authorities in the investigation into the circumstances of the Breitscheidplatz terrorist attack.
The very same prosecutor who, in the parliamentary investigation report on the Anis Amri case, is documented as the source of "inaccurate transmission of information" and who acted on the principle that "he assumed others would take the necessary steps", was appointed as chief prosecutor and de facto architect of the entire investigative strategy in my case.
This is emphatically not about a personal vendetta with a prosecutor, but about a documented working style of a public official on whom it directly depends whether an investigation serves the discovery of truth or a version predetermined from the outset.
After the terrorist attack on the Berlin Christmas market (19 December 2016) the Berlin Senate established a parliamentary investigation committee. The extensive report (Drucksache 18/4000) mentions Wachs's name repeatedly — in anything but a positive context.
Page 512 of the report: The witness Wachs admitted to "inaccurate transmission of information". He stated it was entirely possible that he had not explicitly told the responsible police units that they could contact him at any time as soon as there were indications of criminal activity — because he had "taken it for granted that this went without saying". Asked whether he had formulated the narrow emergency definitions attributed to him by other participants, Wachs replied that he could not remember.
Source: Drucksache 18/4000, p. 512 — Abgeordnetenhaus BerlinPage 517 of the report describes another characteristic incident. A police officer (K-1) recorded that on 1 August 2016 he had informed Wachs by telephone about the arrest of Anis Amri in Friedrichshafen. Wachs announced he would prepare an internal note on this.
An internal note by Wachs does exist in the files — but it is dated 3 August 2016. In his testimony before the investigation committee Wachs explained that he had "probably made a mistake with the date".
Despite knowledge of Amri's forged documents and known travel route, the Prosecutor General's Office did not contact other prosecution offices and took no action of its own.
Wachs explained that he had simply "assumed" that the Berlin police had already informed the responsible authorities and that the southern German prosecution offices would "in any case take the necessary steps".
Imagine the situation: a foreigner — a journalist at that — announces his intention to call for an independent investigation into OStA Wachs's conduct. What does institutional logic dictate? The most effective course is to isolate me completely — and simultaneously spread disinformation, for instance the allegation that I am an "FSB agent".
Dmitry Bagrash, from the document "Inhalt mit Hinweis"