Harald Range (16 February 1948 –2 May 2018) [1] was a German jurist and was Attorney General of Germany.
After completing his studies at the University of Göttingen Range began his career with the judiciary of Lower Saxony,serving as a judge from 1975 to 1978,as a prosecutor from 1978 to 1986 and as a senior prosecutor at the Higher Regional Court in Celle from 1986 to 1989.
From 1989 to 2001 Range held various roles within the Lower Saxon Ministry of Justice ,including as the leader of the Criminal Law,Law of Criminal Proceedings,and Clemency Unit. From 2001 until 2011 Range served as the State Attorney General in Celle.
Range served as Attorney General of Germany from November 2011 until 2015. [2]
Following the 2011 attack on the British Embassy in Iran,Range launched investigative proceedings against possible plans for Iranian attacks on American military installations in Germany in the event of an attack against Iran. [3]
After coming under pressure from Parliament and the news media in June 2014,Range began a formal investigation of what he called “unknown”members of American intelligence agencies on suspicion that they had eavesdropped on one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphones. [4] By June 2015,he dropped the investigation because of a lack of concrete evidence. [5]
Based on the code of crimes against international law,Range investigated members of the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity in 2015. [6]
In the aftermath of the treason investigation of netzpolitik.org,Federal Minister of Justice Heiko Maas forced Range into retirement for breach of public trust on 4 August 2015. [7] [8]
On the night of 2 May 2018,he collapsed in a caféin Karlsruhe and subsequently died. According to Deutsche Welle,"reports suggest" that his death was caused by a heart attack. [9]
Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021 and was the first woman to hold that office. She previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 2000 to 2018. During her chancellorship,Merkel was frequently referred to as the de facto leader of the European Union (EU) and the most powerful woman in the world. Beginning in 2016,she was often described as the leader of the free world.
Guido Westerwelle was a German politician who served as foreign minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice-Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011,being the first openly gay person to hold any of these positions. He also led the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) from 2001 until he stepped down in 2011. A lawyer by profession,he was a member of the Bundestag from 1996 to 2013.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier is a German politician who became the president of Germany on 19 March 2017. He was previously federal minister for foreign affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017,as well as vice chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009. Steinmeier was chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2016.
The Public Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice is the federal prosecutor of Germany,representing the federal government at the Bundesgerichtshof,the federal court of justice. The office of the Public Prosecutor General is located in Karlsruhe. Besides its role in appellate cases,the Public Prosecutor General has primary jurisdiction in cases of crimes against the state,and offences under the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch. The Public Prosecutor General also represents Germany in certain civil and administrative cases.
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Bilateral relations between the Republic of India and Germany have been traditionally strong due to commercial,cultural and technological co-operation.
Hans-Peter Friedrich is a German politician of the Christian Social Union (CSU) who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since 1998. Under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel,he served as Federal Minister of the Interior (2011-2013) and as Minister for Food and Agriculture (2013). Friedrich resigned from that position in February 2014. Friedrich has a controversial history with minorities in Germany,causing outrage in 2013 after telling journalists that Islam in Germany is not something supported by history at any point.
The National Socialist Underground,or NSU,was a German neo-Nazi militant organization active between 2001 and 2010,and uncovered in November 2011. Regarded as a terror cell,the NSU is mostly associated with Uwe Mundlos,Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe,who lived together under false identities. Between 100 and 150 further associates were identified who supported the core trio in their decade-long underground life and provided them with money,false identities and weapons. Unlike other terror groups,the NSU had not claimed responsibility for their actions. The group's existence was discovered only after the deaths of Böhnhardt and Mundlos,and the subsequent arrest of Zschäpe.
Heiko Josef Maas is a German lawyer and former politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs (2018–2021) and as the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection (2013–2018) in the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Since 2022,he has been practicing as a lawyer.
Natalio Alberto Nisman was an Argentine lawyer who worked as a federal prosecutor,noted for being the chief investigator of the 1994 car bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires,which killed 85 people,the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina's history. On 18 January 2015,Nisman was found dead at his home in Buenos Aires,one day before he was scheduled to report on his findings before a Congress inquiry with supposedly incriminating evidence against high-ranking officials of the then-current Argentinian government including former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,regarding the Memorandum of understanding between Argentina and Iran.
netzpolitik.org is a German language news website on digital rights and digital culture. Among other topics,it covers mass surveillance,open source software,data protection and privacy and net neutrality. The blog was founded in 2002 by Markus Beckedahl,who still leads the project today,supported by more than 30 other contributors.
Thomas Strobl is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Deputy Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg since 2016.
Detlef Seif is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been a Member of the German Bundestag since 2009.
On 19 December 2016,a truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin,leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was the truck's original driver,Łukasz Urban,who was found shot dead in the passenger seat. The truck was eventually stopped by its automatic brakes. The perpetrator was Anis Amri,an unsuccessful asylum seeker from Tunisia. Four days after the attack,he was killed in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy. An initial suspect was arrested and later released due to lack of evidence. Nearly five years after the attack,a man who was critically injured during the attack died from complications related to his wounds,becoming the 13th victim. As of December 2023,this attack remains the worst Islamist terrorist attack by number of casualties in German history.
Michael Kretschmer is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Minister President of Saxony since December 2017. Since 2022,he has been one of four deputy chairs of the CDU,under the leadership of chairman Friedrich Merz.
Peter-Herbert Frank is a German jurist who is currently serving as a judge in the Federal Constitutional Court in the second senate. Prior to this,he served as Public Prosecutor General and as Attorney General for the Higher Regional Court of Munich.
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Armin Schuster is a German politician. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU),Schuster has been serving as State Minister of Internal Affairs in the government of Minister-President Michael Kretschmer since 2022.
International and national courts outside Syria have begun the prosecution of Syrian civil war criminals. War crimes perpetrated by the Syrian government or rebel groups include extermination,murder,rape or other forms of sexual violence,torture and imprisonment. "[A]ccountability for serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights is central to achieving and maintaining durable peace in Syria",stated UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo.
Dmitri Sergeyevich Badin is a Russian intelligence officer and hacker. He is said to have penetrated computer systems of several governments and international organizations on behalf of the Russian state military intelligence service GRU. Badin is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the German federal prosecutor Generalbundesanwalt. He is suspected of being a member of the Sofacy Group.