I note that Yahoo has reported that:
Two lawyers in Berlin on Tuesday brought criminal charges against German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and intelligence agents for "embezzling" taxpayers' money by allegedly buying a stolen computer disc containing confidential data from the whistle-blower.
They said the informant had "committed a serious crime under Liechtenstein law" by selling the disc, adding: "The government does not have the right to spend money to enable a crime."
A legal representative for former Deutsche Post chief Klaus Zumwinkel, who quit last week after he was named in the scandal, has warned that stolen evidence is unlikely to stand up in court.
I find this quite staggering.
If evidence were ever needed that some lawyers see it as their role to undermine the populous democratic state by supporting the abusive structures created in tax havens which have the main purpose of facilitating corruption in those countries where most people in the world live, then here you have it.
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It seems to me that the German government is itself complicit in a crime by rewarding a criminal for committing a crime. It can’t be as black and white as you like to paint it. I think it is highly immoral for the German government to have done this. It is a bit like the UK government being complicit with the torture of muslims captured by the United States in my view.
Phil
Yes, Germany breached an ethical guideline. I have already explained why this was ethically acceptable.
You appear to condone the evader: in this case you are simply in the moral low ground.
There is no analogy with muslim torture at all: that is and always will be wrong.
Richard