In 1981 came the investigation of
- the feigned robbery (of 13 million Deutschmarks) by the jeweller Düe in 1981.
Working undercover, Mauss succeeded in obtaining fifteen pieces of jewellery from Düe which the jeweller had already reported as stolen.
Düe was arrested on the 5th of August 1982 and on the 4th of January 1984 he received a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence from the District Court in Hanover.
However, because one witness had not been heard, the Supreme Court quashed the sentence on the 2nd of November 1984.
In the Court of Appeal the public prosecutor’s office suppressed all evidence obtained by conspiratorial methods. On the 13th of March 1989 Düe was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.
The Civil Chamber of the Hanover District Court convicted Düe in spite of the acquittal on the grounds that evidence not produced in the court of appeal represented wilful deceit and gross negligence. It also rejected his request for legal aid in a 73 million Deutschmark damages suit against the Mannheimer Versicherung insurance company.
See Judgement of the Hanover District Court, 26th February 1992, AZ 130192/91; pp. 17, 18, and 19[Link]
: HAZ, 27. 2. 1992 [Link]
THE FEDERAL SUPREME COURT CONFIRMED THE VERDICT OF THE CIVIL COURT IN HANOVER, EXEMPTING THE INSURANCE COMPANY FROM ANY LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES FOR THE ALLEGED DÜE ROBBERY.
NEVERTHELESS, DÜE RECEIVED SEVERAL MILLION MARKS COMPENSATION FOR WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT FROM THE STATE OF LOWER SAXONY.
In 1983, Düe, with the aid of criminal accessories, succeeded in manipulating a group of journalists whose names are now known and who were coordinated by a freelance television journalist from Frankfurt on Main.
According to information now available, it was possible for these people to corrupt a detective who was then on remand in North-Rhine/Westphalia. With the help of this person it was possible for them to reveal the identity of the Claude/Mauss, witness in the Düe case and police special agent. They illegally paid this detective to supply them with confidential information on various investigations by the German public prosecutor’s office in which Mauss was involved as a police undercover agent.
By means of the illegal insight gained into the procedures of the special prosecutors the journalists could find out in which cities Mauss had been operating on behalf of the public prosecutor’s office.
MAUSS WAS NOT, OF COURSE, LIABLE TO PROSECUTION BECAUSE OF THIS.
Arrogantly, in neglect of their journalistic duty to the truth and prepared to risk the possible legal consequences through “misleading of judicial authorities”, the journalists, with only their own financial interests at heart, systematically brought charges of receiving stolen goods, and other offences against Mauss in Hanover, Coblenz, Stuttgart, Frankfurt/Main and other cities.
HE WAS TO BE CRIMINALISED IN ORDER TO MAKE HIM SEEM UNTRUSTWORTHY AS WITNESS IN THE DÜE CASE.
The public prosecutors offices in the respective cities quickly recognised the nature of the intrigue however and acted to bring the individual judicial proceedings together (Sammelverfahren) in Frankfurt on Main. They suspended ex officio all inquiries against Mauss with regard to accusations of criminal offences by the journalists.
To official observers at the time it was also no great surprise when the freelance television journalist from Frankfurt on Main, the coordinator of the criminal circle of journalists, followed up his exposure of agent Mauss in 1983 with a criminalising television documentary directed against Mauss.
In the autumn of 1983, the journalist from Frankfurt began visiting prisons, seeking out hardened criminals with the intention of buying information on the undercover operations in which Mauss had been involved. The journalist evidently had agreements reached with Düe and his own financial interests at heart.
In the dubious television documentary the man from Frankfurt gave the hardened criminals the “opportunity” to “air their grievances”. With the “coordination of a well-drilled choir” they sang out protestations of Düe’s innocence. Cleverly the journalist manipulated his film against Mauss and in favour of the accused Düe. The objective here, which developed into a well-rehearsed pattern of polemic in the following years, was to discredit and criminalise the most important witness for the prosecution in the Düe case “Claude” alias Mauss.
Düe’s supporters went to a great deal of trouble, up to and beyond his “acquittal”, further influencing the print media and television companies and attempting to defame and lend a dubious notoriety to Mauss with the help of misleading reporting.
During 1987/88, Mauss and his wife were involved in various undercover operations coordinated by European security services, tracking murder suspects and kidnappers.
Once again the “journalists’ circle” gained illegal information on one such operation. It seemed they would stop at nothing in their efforts to DISRUPT the work Mr and Mrs Mauss, including bring the couple into DANGER OF THEIR LIVES.
In one case they even went so far as to plant objects close to the scene of a meeting between the couple and their criminal interlocutors with the intention of exposing the pair’s identity. Criminal investigation officers from the country in which the operation took place seized the disruptive objects as evidence. Today they are in storage as court exhibits in the cellar of the Mauss’s lawyer’s office.
In another case, the above-mentioned deliberately passed on information to criminals who then lay in wait for the police agents in a Frankfurt underground car park. The couple noticed a crosswise-parked car, which was intended to prevent them from leaving the car park. At that moment five men approached their car. Quick as a flash, Mauss smashed the offside window of the parked car with the help of a car-jack, pushed the obstructing vehicle to the side and drove by the southern-European-looking men who had tried to hinder him and his wife from continuing their journey. They drove at high speed out of the multi-storey car park, smashing their way through the closed exit barrier.
AFTER THE ATTACK MAUSS INFORMED THE AUTHORITIES IN ORDER TO CLEAR UP WHAT HAD HAPPENED WITH THE POLICE.
Once again, the intention was to eliminate Mauss as prosecution witness.
IT WAS DÜE’S ABOVE-MENTIONED ACCOMPLICES WHO COLLECTED THE ENTIRE AMOUNT OF COMPENSATION FOR WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT PAID BY THE STATE OF LOWER SAXONY AFTER HIS “ACQUITTAL” IN MARCH 1989.
SUDDENLY IN JUNE OF 2000, AFTER 19 YEARS – WITH PROSECUTION NO LONGER POSSIBLE – 10.8 KILOS OF THE JEWELLERY, STILL BEARING THE ORIGINAL LABELS, AND REPORTED AT THE TIME BY DÜE AS STOLEN, TURNED UP IN DURING RENOVATION WORK AT THE FORMER BUSINESS PREMISES OF THE FATHER, FRIEDRICH DÜE AM BALLHAUS, HANOVER, ONLY SOME 400 METRES FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME, AM KRÖPPKE.
The new owner had found the allegedly stolen goods concealed behind walls and ceilings. In the autumn of 1982, as Rene Düe was awaiting trial, his father Friedrich had sold the business. This was the reason why the criminal son “fortunately” was unable to clear out the allegedly stolen jewellery from its hiding place before its discovery in June of 2000.
THIS WOULD SEEM TO REMOVE THE LAST SHADOW OF DOUBT ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT DÜE HAD ORGANISED THE ROBBERY HIMSELF. IN ANY CASE IT IS RIDICULOUS TO SUPPOSE THAT THE ROBBERS HAD JUST HAPPENED TO CHOOSE DÜE’S FATHER’S BUSINESS AS HIDING PLACE FOR THEIR HAUL ON 31st OCTOBER 1981. DÜE’S APPEAL COURT CLAIM THAT HE HAD FOUND THE FIFTEEN PIECES OF JEWELLERY HANDED OVER TO MAUSS BY CHANCE IN HIS FATHER’S FORMER PREMISES IS – VIEWED WITH HINDSIGHT – EVEN CORRECT.
DÜE HAD “JUST” FORGOTTEN TO INFORM THE COURT BEFORE HIS ACQUITTAL IN 1989 THAT 10.8 OF THE 40 KILOS WAS STILL HIDDEN BEHIND THE WALLS AND CEILINGS OF THE FORMER BUSINESS.
In retrospect it is shocking to note that at the time Düe and those who helped him were even able to manipulate well-known politicians, to deceive and delude them, and turn them into unknowing accomplices to his criminal activities.
A LOOK BACK AT THE NEWS REPORTING ON THE DÜE CASE TODAY PROVIDES THE FOLLOWING OUTLINE:
- 31st October 1981 Düe “Robbery”
- Düe reports more than 40 kilos of jewellery as stolen, approx. 3,400 individual goods on consignment
- witnesses observe: Two males of southern European appearance hastily leaving premises carrying small executive-type cases
- the police in Hanover do not believe that these possible suspects could possibly have removed 40 kilos of jewellery in the time available– cases too small, too many individual pieces etc.
- during a murder trial in Istanbul in 1991, some Turkish [Link], [Link],
men claim to have assisted Düe in feigning robbery
- could the Turks have been the same southern-European-looking men seen by witnesses immediately after the crime?
- 1982, the State Office of Criminal Investigation in Lower Saxony forms a special committee due to the presence of various seriously suspicious factors
- summer 1982: Düe hands over to police agent “Claude” (Mauss) the fifteen pieces of jewellery he had reported as stolen
- In the period between his conviction in 1984 and his appeal court acquittal in 1989, Düe and his criminal accomplices organised a campaign of character assassination against an important prosecution witness (police agent Mauss), on a scale probably unique in Germany, in order to try to render him ineffective as a witness for the prosecution
- AS PLANNED BY DÜE AND HIS ACCOMPLICES -
- 13 March 1989: René Düe is acquitted on appeal due to lack of evidence against him. The court in Brunswick suppressed all conspiratorially obtained evidence in advance
- AS PLANNED BY DÜE AND HIS ACCOMPLICES -
- Mauss not called as witness for the prosecution in the Brunswick criminal trial.
- AS PLANNED BY DÜE AND HIS ACCOMPLICES -
- Mauss is not called as a witness for the prosecution in the Brunswick criminal trial
-AS PLANNED BY DÜE AND HIS ACCOMPLICES-
- Under examination Düe claims he had found the fifteen items of jewellery reported by him as missing by chance in his father’s business premises. The court believes him
- NOT EXPECTED BY DÜE AND HIS ACCOMPLICES -
-In spite of the acquittal of the Brunswick criminal court, the district civil court in Hanover allows all evidence produced by undercover agent Mauss as well as other evidence produced by the police. It finds Düe guilty of having wilfully deceived the insurance company. With the decision of the Hanover court of February 26th 1992, confirmed by the Federal Supreme Court, the insurance company is exempted, due to the charge of wilful deceit, from any liability. Düe’s request for legal aid in a claim for damages worth 73 million Deutschmarks against the insurance company is also rejected.
CONTROVERSY: In spite of these judgements, the State of Lower Saxony paid out millions of Deutschmarks compensation to Düe for wrongful imprisonment. His criminal accomplices immediately laid claim to the money
- 20th of June 2000: On this day - 19 years after the deed - renovation work lays bear 10.8 kilos of jewellery from the Düe robbery, still bearing its original labels, behind walls and ceilings at the former business premises of Düe’s father. This place lies only 400 metres away from the scene of the crime.
- After this discovery even people who had allowed themselves to be influenced in the years before by the character assassination campaign, organised with a great deal of money and effort against agent Mauss, are convinced of Düe’s guilt.
SUMMARY:
International criminologists, judges and public prosecutors agree: The Düe case is very well suited for instruction purposes in police training colleges. It also makes clear that Düe’s criminal energy and the organised power that he and his supporters were able to summon had simply trampled over the constitutional state to achieve acquittal; the result: The crime had been committed, but was no longer punishable.
NEVERTHELESS, AT THE END OF THE DAY, ALL THAT DÜE AND HIS CRIMINAL FRIENDS HAD ACHIEVED, WAS A GREAT DEAL OF TROUBLE FOR NO FINANCIAL REWARD
IMITATORS BE WARNED:
“CRIME DOES NOT PAY”
WamS, No. 25 of 18.6.2000 [LINK],
HAZ 29.6.2000, [LINK];
Wochenspiegel, 12.6.2000 [LINK],
dpa, 28.6.2000; [LINK],
Der Spiegel, No.26/2000, pp.71,72 and 73; [LINK]
Bild, 24.6.2000; [LINK],
Bild, 26.6.2000;[LINK]
Provisional order against Düe from 31.07.2000 LG Stuttgart, AZ 17 O 406/2000[Link],
Prof. Wenzel, written submission of
4.9. 2000 for enforcement of the verdict in action for disposition before the District Court Stuttgart
against Düe [Link],
Interlocutory injunction against Rene Düe on 28th September 2000 final,
AZ 17O406/400 [Link],
Declaration of submission by Düe [Link],
and announcement of his lawyer RA Malottke vom 3.11.2000 [Link]
Submission by 26.1.1992 by Prof. Wenzel to the General State Prosecutor Celle and senior public prosecutor in Hanover on suspicion of Turkish national Aydin Yildizsoy’s, involvement in the Düe feigned robbery of 31.10.1981. [Link]
Yildiszoy had murdered his accomplice in Istanbul on 20.3.1991; and in Mafia fashion sewn up the mouth with cotton thread. His testimony in court: The dead should not “betray their secrets from beyond the grave”. Before the same Istanbul court, the brother of victim Nevzat Avan testified that his murdered brother and Yildiszoy had been accomplices of Düe and had helped him to carry out the feigned robbery on his jewellery business. In court he testified to knowing René Düe and said that the robbery of 31. 10. 1981 had been faked.
On the above-mentioned facts [Link]
as well as the article from "Hürriyet" from 1st February 1992 [Link], and
the "Mannheimer Morgen" from 5th February 1992 [Link] and from "Der Spiegel" from 26th June 2000, No. 26/2000 [Link]
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