4 ms·

The affair you're talking about happened more than a decade ago, it was a major and pretty unique scandal in Germany, and the "expert" has been convicted not on

by lima 6y ago

The affair you're talking about happened more than a decade ago, it was a major and pretty unique scandal in Germany, and the "expert" has been convicted not only to pay damages, but was also found to be guilty of malpractice. The state eventually offered the investigators to be re-hired. There were no consequences for the "instigators" because, to my understanding, it couldn't be proven that there was criminal intent. The events got plenty of media attention and high-ranking officials and judges denounced the actions of the agency. No country is safe from corruption, but this story certainly doesn't support the notion of the country being corrupt, much less "insanely corrupt".

Mirioron 6y ago
Is it unique? Didn't Gustl Mollath [0] also end up in a psychiatric facility and it started with him claiming that a bank was evading taxes? He was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. After years in there it turned out that his claim about the tax evasion was reasonable. From what I can tell, he spent ~6 years locked up in a psychiatric facility and got €600,000 in damages. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath
- ketzu 6y ago
  Based on your "also": According to the spiegel article the investigators didn't end up in a psychiatric facility, but got a diagnosis of inability-to-work and pensioned. The case for Mr. Mollath was much worse.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    And it happened in Bavaria. We do have a certain tradition with such kind of things, it even has nickname since the Strauss days: Amigo Affairs. Most high level political corruption and fraud cases had Bavarian politicians involved. Especially when arms or taxes are involved.
- lima 6y ago
  I'm aware of the case, hence "quite unique". While ugly, it has nothing to do with corruption whatsoever.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  Did you actually read the Wiki page? There is a lot of context you are leaving out there. Based on my reading this was not some grand conspiracy by a bank to silence a critic. It sounds like this man certainly did have some psychological issues and assaulted his wife multiple times. Due to his history and his behaviour during the following court case he was locked up in psychiatric care. He did make allegations about a tax evasion scheme during the court case about the assault (and these were wrongly seen by the court as a sign of his psychological problems). But it's not like he was a whistleblower who was silenced through some made-up allegations. The Wiki page also says that the "reported money transfers were not illegal per se", so this isn't even a clear cut case of tax evasion. Clearly a lot of things went wrong in this case and he was partially acquitted and compensated later on. But I don't think this is any evidence for systemic corruption in the entire country.
  - voxic11 6y ago
    > The judgment was based, among other things, on the opinion of expert Klaus Leipziger from Bayreuth, who attested to Mollath's paranoid delusions of a "black money complex" > The first medical specialist statement on Mollath's mental health was created solely from information provided by his wife; the doctor in question, Gabriele Krach, consultant psychiatrist at the Klinikum am Europakanal, had not seen Mollath even once. > In contrast, Hans Simmerl, the consultant commissioned by the local court of Straubing to assess Mollath's mental health during a trial pertaining to his guardianship/health care, conversed with him for several hours in 2007 and did not find any evidence of mental disorders; > On 19 February 2013, Strate applied for a trial de novo based on evidence that the presiding judge had committed numerous instances of perversion of justice against Mollath in the case. According to Strate, the judge was responsible for Mollath's detention for almost three weeks without disclosure of the charges or presentation to a judge, failure to respond to Mollath's complaints or forward them to the higher court that should have decided them, manipulation of the court's composition, obvious misrepresentations in the reasons for the judgment, and unconscionable refusal to discharge Mollath's assigned counsel in spite of many petitions to do so, followed by use of said counsel as a witness against his own client. > On 18 March 2013, in a very unusual move, the prosecution also applied for a trial de novo, based on exculpating evidence that had surfaced only after the original trial. > Judge Otto Brixner had to admit before the committee that he hadn't read Mollath's written defense which he claimed to be irrelevant in his judgment. In June 2013 Mollath testified before the committee, repeating his claim that he wasn't allowed to give evidence during his trial. > On 6 August 2013 the Oberlandesgericht Nuremberg (higher regional court) ordered the reopening of Mollath's case. He was released from mental hospital immediately. The court found that the medical certificate documenting the alleged abuse of his wife was a "fictitious document", because it appeared to be written and signed by Dr. Madeleine Reichel, who never had examined Mollath's wife. Instead the author of the report was her son, then a doctor in training. > Mollath's 2018 action for damages by the unlawful custody has been concluded in November 2019 by an ex gratia payment of €600,000 by the defendant Free State of Bavaria. > Ultimately, the court considered the aggravated assault proven, but fully acquitted him on the other charges citing insufficient proof. Criminal insanity was also considered unproven; Mollath was held in a psychiatric ward unlawfully and was entitled to a compensation. The acquittal from the first trial could not be overturned though, and Mollath was acquitted on all charges.
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  4x 200k and 600k EUR are among the highest damages for pain and suffering ever awarded by a German court, so as far as legally resolved processes go these are very unusual.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  It seems wrong to list his Occupation as "Victim" in the wikipedia article.
marcinzm 6y ago
I mean, in Wirecard prosecutors literally went after short sellers with criminals charges. For years. They only dropped charges a few months ago after a donation was made to a charitable organization. Seems pretty similar and pretty corrupt to me. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wirecard-accounts-germany-insight/germanys-long-lonely-campaign-battling-wirecards-short-sellers-idUSKCN24H0KM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wirecard-accounts-germany... edit: I guess "we'll ruin you and throw you in jail" is better than "we'll throw you out a window" but it's still pretty bad. edit2: And if Wildcard hadn't imploded there'd have been no scandal about prosecutors going after critics. No issues with silencing complaints or limiting freedom of speech. Just another part of doing business against companies the government support.
- thespiceisloco 6y ago
  HN silences people like you. Be careful.
  - dang 6y ago
    HN silences people from commenting about Wirecard?! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23874420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23874420
- lima 6y ago
  > I mean, in Wirecard prosecutors literally went after short sellers with criminals charges. For years. They only dropped charges a few months ago after a donation was made to a charitable organization. Seems pretty similar and pretty corrupt to me. Corruption, or (gross) incompetence? Don't attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity. Misplaced trust, broken culture, political pressure, or even actual corruption - we simply don't know what happened.
  - raincom 6y ago
    Germans are known for competence, industriousness, according to their PR or propaganda department. So, incompetence is ruled out.
corty 6y ago
Current head of the EU comission and former defense minister Ursula von der Leyen is another perfect example of German government corruption. She provided old buddies at various companies with jobs and tons of money for suspicious "couselling", nothing of consequence from that, she just failed upward. Maybe you can't bribe a policeman at a traffic stop in Germany. But in the levels above that, there are plenty of current egregious examples of corruption that has happened and was systematically covered up or ignored.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  For sure you can. It just has to be a very high bribe, to make the policemen accept the risk.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by lima 6y ago

Mirioron 6y ago

Is it unique? Didn't Gustl Mollath [0] also end up in a psychiatric facility and it started with him claiming that a bank was evading taxes? He was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. After years in there it turned out that his claim about the tax evasion was reasonable. From what I can tell, he spent ~6 years locked up in a psychiatric facility and got €600,000 in damages. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath

ketzu 6y ago
Based on your "also": According to the spiegel article the investigators didn't end up in a psychiatric facility, but got a diagnosis of inability-to-work and pensioned. The case for Mr. Mollath was much worse.
- hef19898 6y ago
  And it happened in Bavaria. We do have a certain tradition with such kind of things, it even has nickname since the Strauss days: Amigo Affairs. Most high level political corruption and fraud cases had Bavarian politicians involved. Especially when arms or taxes are involved.
lima 6y ago
I'm aware of the case, hence "quite unique". While ugly, it has nothing to do with corruption whatsoever.
DangerousPie 6y ago
Did you actually read the Wiki page? There is a lot of context you are leaving out there. Based on my reading this was not some grand conspiracy by a bank to silence a critic. It sounds like this man certainly did have some psychological issues and assaulted his wife multiple times. Due to his history and his behaviour during the following court case he was locked up in psychiatric care. He did make allegations about a tax evasion scheme during the court case about the assault (and these were wrongly seen by the court as a sign of his psychological problems). But it's not like he was a whistleblower who was silenced through some made-up allegations. The Wiki page also says that the "reported money transfers were not illegal per se", so this isn't even a clear cut case of tax evasion. Clearly a lot of things went wrong in this case and he was partially acquitted and compensated later on. But I don't think this is any evidence for systemic corruption in the entire country.
- voxic11 6y ago
  > The judgment was based, among other things, on the opinion of expert Klaus Leipziger from Bayreuth, who attested to Mollath's paranoid delusions of a "black money complex" > The first medical specialist statement on Mollath's mental health was created solely from information provided by his wife; the doctor in question, Gabriele Krach, consultant psychiatrist at the Klinikum am Europakanal, had not seen Mollath even once. > In contrast, Hans Simmerl, the consultant commissioned by the local court of Straubing to assess Mollath's mental health during a trial pertaining to his guardianship/health care, conversed with him for several hours in 2007 and did not find any evidence of mental disorders; > On 19 February 2013, Strate applied for a trial de novo based on evidence that the presiding judge had committed numerous instances of perversion of justice against Mollath in the case. According to Strate, the judge was responsible for Mollath's detention for almost three weeks without disclosure of the charges or presentation to a judge, failure to respond to Mollath's complaints or forward them to the higher court that should have decided them, manipulation of the court's composition, obvious misrepresentations in the reasons for the judgment, and unconscionable refusal to discharge Mollath's assigned counsel in spite of many petitions to do so, followed by use of said counsel as a witness against his own client. > On 18 March 2013, in a very unusual move, the prosecution also applied for a trial de novo, based on exculpating evidence that had surfaced only after the original trial. > Judge Otto Brixner had to admit before the committee that he hadn't read Mollath's written defense which he claimed to be irrelevant in his judgment. In June 2013 Mollath testified before the committee, repeating his claim that he wasn't allowed to give evidence during his trial. > On 6 August 2013 the Oberlandesgericht Nuremberg (higher regional court) ordered the reopening of Mollath's case. He was released from mental hospital immediately. The court found that the medical certificate documenting the alleged abuse of his wife was a "fictitious document", because it appeared to be written and signed by Dr. Madeleine Reichel, who never had examined Mollath's wife. Instead the author of the report was her son, then a doctor in training. > Mollath's 2018 action for damages by the unlawful custody has been concluded in November 2019 by an ex gratia payment of €600,000 by the defendant Free State of Bavaria. > Ultimately, the court considered the aggravated assault proven, but fully acquitted him on the other charges citing insufficient proof. Criminal insanity was also considered unproven; Mollath was held in a psychiatric ward unlawfully and was entitled to a compensation. The acquittal from the first trial could not be overturned though, and Mollath was acquitted on all charges.
formerly_proven 6y ago
4x 200k and 600k EUR are among the highest damages for pain and suffering ever awarded by a German court, so as far as legally resolved processes go these are very unusual.
oh_sigh 6y ago
It seems wrong to list his Occupation as "Victim" in the wikipedia article.

marcinzm 6y ago

I mean, in Wirecard prosecutors literally went after short sellers with criminals charges. For years. They only dropped charges a few months ago after a donation was made to a charitable organization. Seems pretty similar and pretty corrupt to me. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wirecard-accounts-germany-insight/germanys-long-lonely-campaign-battling-wirecards-short-sellers-idUSKCN24H0KM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wirecard-accounts-germany... edit: I guess "we'll ruin you and throw you in jail" is better than "we'll throw you out a window" but it's still pretty bad. edit2: And if Wildcard hadn't imploded there'd have been no scandal about prosecutors going after critics. No issues with silencing complaints or limiting freedom of speech. Just another part of doing business against companies the government support.

thespiceisloco 6y ago
HN silences people like you. Be careful.
- dang 6y ago
  HN silences people from commenting about Wirecard?! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23874420 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23874420
lima 6y ago
> I mean, in Wirecard prosecutors literally went after short sellers with criminals charges. For years. They only dropped charges a few months ago after a donation was made to a charitable organization. Seems pretty similar and pretty corrupt to me. Corruption, or (gross) incompetence? Don't attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity. Misplaced trust, broken culture, political pressure, or even actual corruption - we simply don't know what happened.
- raincom 6y ago
  Germans are known for competence, industriousness, according to their PR or propaganda department. So, incompetence is ruled out.

corty 6y ago

Current head of the EU comission and former defense minister Ursula von der Leyen is another perfect example of German government corruption. She provided old buddies at various companies with jobs and tons of money for suspicious "couselling", nothing of consequence from that, she just failed upward. Maybe you can't bribe a policeman at a traffic stop in Germany. But in the levels above that, there are plenty of current egregious examples of corruption that has happened and was systematically covered up or ignored.

hutzlibu 6y ago
For sure you can. It just has to be a very high bribe, to make the policemen accept the risk.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]