A treason investigation targeting two journalists that exposed severe rifts between Germany’s Justice Ministry and its top prosecutor was dropped Monday.
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Website Netzpolitik.org was notified of the investigation of its founder and another journalist in late July.
The case itself ignited political outcry from the people of Germany surrounding the topic of free speech.
And public rallies backed Netzpolitik. Last week the Justice Minister, Heiko Maas, sacked chief prosecutor Harald Range.
Acting chief prosecutor Gerhard Altvater said that documents published by blog Netzpolitik.org detailing plans to step up state surveillance of online communications did not constitute state secrets and that all treason charges have therefore been dropped.
Netzpolitik.org is a website centered around online privacy, freedom of the media and Germany’s intelligence services, according to the New York Times. Maas previously expressed doubts over whether the publication of restricted documents belonging to the domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, endangered Germany.
Beckedahl and Meister noted the investigation has merely been suspended, not formally dropped; the German television tagessachau.de website quoted them as demanding “the immediate cancellation of the investigation”.
“We want to know precisely whether we were subject to surveillance measures during the nearly three-month investigation”, he said in a statement.
The federal prosecutor’s office said an investigation into the unidentified source of the leaked documents would be transferred to local prosecutors.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government wouldn’t comment on the prosecutors’ decision but stressed its commitment to press freedom.
