Six face spy charges

Press, 8 March 1978, Page 9

Six face spy charges

NZPA-Reuter Bonn The West German Chief Federal Prosecutor (Mr Kurt Rebmann) has filed treason charges against six suspects, in what he has termed West Germany’s worst post-World War Two spy case. The suspects, apprehended 21 months ago, allegedly passed or helped pass more than 1000 secret North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and West German military documents to East Germany. The Defence Minister (Mr Georg Leber) resigned in the aftermath of the so-called Lutze case.

Lothar Lutze, aged 37, | allegedly agreed to spy on , behalf of the East German Ministry for State Security when he was still a soldier with the West German armed forces in 1960. Working as a Defence Ministry clerk responsible for classified material, he ■ allegedly passed official and State secrets to the East Germans from January, 1975, on. According to the charges, he persuaded his wife, Renate, now aged 37, and a former secretary in the Defence Ministry’s welfare ,

I department, to join him in his espionage work in 1972. Also charged was Juergen Wiegel, aged 32, who like the Lutze couple worked for the Bonn Defence Ministry, and his 31-year-old wife, Ursula. Mrs Wiegel is the only suspect not under detention. Wiegel joined the spy ring at the request of Lutze in 1966 and apparently talked his wife Ursula into joining him two years later, according to Mr Rebmann. Like Lutze. Wiegel was a clerk in the Defence Ministry’s classified filing department.