Alleged Secret Mission on Jolo Whips Up Storm

RZ (Rheinzeitung) No. 220, 21.09.2000, Dietmar Brück 
 
Vollmer criticises Mauss and Schmidbauer – Accusations baseless claims ex-agent
 
BERLIN. Former super agent Werner Mauss and erstwhile intelligence services coordinator at the Chancellor’s Office, Bernd Schmidbauer of the Christian Democrats (CDU) are in the news once again.

Ludger Vollmer, Minister of State at the German Foreign Office has accused the pair of having added considerably to the difficulties involved in obtaining the release of the Wallert family from Göttingen through their attempts at independent mediation. In “Stern” magazine the Green politician refers to the “great damage done to our reputation with regard to foreign policy.” The supposed mission of Schmidbauer and Mauss “has cost us and the hostages at least a month”, said Vollmer. Reaction amongst the Greens has been to regard this as an attempt by former minister Schmidbauer to relive past glories.

Former super agent and Schmidbauer crony Mauss is surprised by Vollmer’s outburst. “I was never in the Philippines. As far as the entire Wallert business is concerned, all I did was to pass on information that I received via an old Asian contact. My intention was to help the hostages”, he commented to this newspaper, adding: “I did not want any money for what I did, and I explained this to the SPD in Berlin.”
The master agent is taking legal action against “Stern” magazine after, among other things, it was claimed he had contacted the Federal Criminal Police Office under a false name. “All a pack of lies”, according to Mauss. The “private” agent does not, in any case, think very much of the way the hostage affair has been handled. “It would have been better had the German government given the Southeast Asian states a chance to solve the hostage drama internally.”

Just as angry as Mauss is former German intelligence services coordinator Schmidbauer. “The German Foreign Office has expressed its gratitude to me”, he claims. “So I don’t really understand why Vollmer is now coming out with such nonsense.” Schmidbauer claims that it was he who was responsible for setting up the contact with Libyan revolutionary leader Muammar el Gaddafi in the first place, which then led to the release of the Jolo hostages.

The ex-minister is scathing in his attack on Vollmer: If he had made the German ransom money available to Libyan negotiator Radschab Assaruk a bit more quickly “the hostages would have been spared months of unnecessary stress.”

By courtesy of the publisher www.rheinzeitung.de