Germany is investigating reports that a former prosecutor’s office employee passed on information to conspiracists.
A member of Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office is accused of complicity with a leader of Germany’s anti-vaccine movement.
The suspect is a 32-year-old woman who used to head the office’s IT department before she was dismissed with immediate effect last May.
She is alleged to have leaked information to Attila Hildmann, a German-Turkish vegan chef who has been on the run for several months.
Hildmann is accused of incitement to violence linked to anti-vax demonstrations and is facing several investigations.
The 32-year-old suspect allegedly told Hildmann that an arrest warrant had been issued for him, allowing the chef to flee to Turkey.
She has also taken part in protests against COVID-19 restrictions and is reported to have consulted documents from the public prosecutor’s office concerning conspiracy movements and far-right activists.
Dirk Berendt, the senator in charge of justice in Berlin, said on Twitter that the case was extraordinary.
“To my knowledge, there has never been a comparable case in the Berlin judicial system,” he stated.
“The Attorney General has already worked out measures to make it more difficult to access procedures in the authorities and to keep better records.”
“Such a procedure must not be repeated,” he added.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office told AFP that the 32-year-old woman was under investigation for “violating professional secrecy” and “obstructing a judicial investigation”.
