The journalists filmed Boere ahead of his 2010 conviction |
Two Dutch
journalists have been ordered to stand trial in Germany for secretly recording
an interview with a former Nazi assassin. A court in Aachen has said the
recordings were illegal under German privacy laws.
A German
court ruled on Thursday that two Dutch journalists are to stand trial next
month for secretly filming an interview with a former SS assassin.
Reporters
Jan Pons and Jelle Visser, from the Dutch current affairs program Een Vandaag,
allegedly used a hidden camera to record the interview with the convicted
assassin Heinrich Boere in his nursing home in 2009. They were accused of
trespass and breach of confidentiality under German privacy laws.
"They
could face three years in jail for revealing a conversation that should have
remained private," a spokesman for the regional court in Aachen said on
Thursday. Their trial is scheduled for February 3.
The
reporters claimed to have resorted to the subterfuge as a "last
resort" after both Boere and his lawyer refused numerous interview
requests. Boere launched criminal proceedings after the interview was broadcast
and issued a complaint to the Dutch Press Council. The complaint was later
dismissed, however, on the grounds that public interest was more important than
Boere's right to privacy.
The
90-year-old was sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany in 2010 after
confessing to the murders of three civilians in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands
in 1944. He had been a member of an SS commando unit tasked with assassinating
suspected members of the Dutch resistance movement.
Relatives
of the victims said that they are angry that charges have been brought against
the journalists, German news agency EPD reported on Thursday.
Author:
Charlotte Chelsom-Pill (AFP, epd)
Editor: Michael Lawton
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