Former head of Siemens security said to have worked as an agent

Published in “Der Spiegel”, November 7, 2009
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,659981,00.html

In the past, Gert-René Polli worked for Siemens as the head of security. Now, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office conducts investigations against him. According to SPIEGEL’s information, he is suspected of having worked as an intelligence agent. Apparently, allegations from the USA have caused the investigations – the Americans disapprove of Polli’s good contacts with Iran.

Hamburg – Gert-René Polli, former head of security at Siemens, has become a target of the German Judiciary. Since early 2009, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe conducts investigations against the Austrian citizen who is suspected of working as an intelligence agent.

According to information of SPIEGEL, this happens on the backdrop of a case of espionage that happened in Vienna years ago. A secret operational picture of the BND (German Federal Intelligence Service) that had been routinely forwarded to Austrian authorities, was apparently leaked to the Iranian intelligence service. At that time, Polli headed the Austrian Federal Agency for State Protection and Counter-Terrorism (BVT). The German investigators are now examining the question whether Polli had possibly been personally responsible for the dissemination of the document, and have asked the Austrian Judiciary for legal assistance.

However, the investigations until now have not confirmed the suspicion, but largely invalidated it; connoisseurs of the case, therefore, expect the charges to be dismissed soon.

Polli had been repeatedly critiziced in Vienna for his alleged closeness to Iranian officials. Siemens has recently laid him off – allegedly by mutual agreement.

Speculations circulate in Polli’s environment that US authorities, who repeatedly complained about him, are the driving force behind the preliminary investigations. In his time as the head of the BVT, Polli had insisted that the CIA notifies Austria about their secret operations in that country – to the displeasure of the Americans.

Polli’s good connections with Iran have aroused the US government’s suspicion for quite a while. His lawyer considers the investigations to be a “mere political issue, with the aim of ruining my client’s life.”

More than 100 arrests in Iran

Published in “Handelsblatt” on November 7, 2009, 15:11 h

Total surveillance in Iran

Published in “Wiener Zeitung” (Austria), November 7, 2009
http://www.wienerzeitung.at/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3856&Alias=wzo&cob=449112

By Arian Faal

Tehran/Wien. Iran is not calming down. During yesterday’s Friday prayer, chants of “Death to the dictator” could be heard again. Of course, this was not officially reported. After the bloody clampdown of several anti-government protests that have been taking place since the controversial reelection of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mass demonstrations of the “Greens”, as the protesters call themselves with reference to the official color of opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi’s campaign, were resumed in full activity.

While the protests never stopped entirely, especially in the universities, the security forces widely prevented gatherings in the streets. Therefore, many demonstrators took advantage of the 4th November, the day of the seizure of the U.S. embassy, as an occasion to gather.
What’s delicate here is that many of the students involved in the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis in Iran made steep careers, but have now turned away from the regime and joined the protesters.

Mohsen Mirdamadi, for example, was the voice of those who occupied the embassy, and later became the head of the influential Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy. Meanwhile, he is one of the harshest critics of the leadership. He was arrested on the day after the election and since then has been imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.

Opposition infiltrates events
The “Greens” have for months been infiltrating and taking over demonstrations staged by the regime, and managed to corner the regime: Tehran can not possibly cancel official events, since those are intended to demonstrate the power of the leadership. But now the militias are fed up. With a set of rigorous measures, the opposition shall be systematically silenced in the future. The list of issued commands is long, however, the key term is mass surveillance at all levels: The Ministry of Culture issued a directive that newspapers are allowed to report on official rallies only. The news agencies Reuters and Agence France Press are not allowed to do any research.

In the future, the people will think twice about how and for what purposes they will use traditional communication channels like SMS and telephone, since the Revolutionary Guards have purchased a majority of the shares in Iran’s largest telecommunication company (TCI) for a value of 7,8 billion dollars almost one month ago. The threats via SMS, that citizens of Tehran and other cities received this week, warning them not to participate in “illegal protests”, might soon become a routine. However, the opposition does not even think of giving up.