The trial against three former operatives of the Luxembourg State Intelligence Service (SREL) started on Tuesday. One of the most notable witnesses included former Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who said during his deposition on Wednesday that he fully supported the decision to record Loris Mariotto.
Two police investigators who focused on the technical aspects of the controversial affair testified this Friday. The chief investigator, who retired three years ago, questioned whether the former Minister of State had been thoroughly informed before the recording of Loris Mariotto took place. The chief investigator also said that Juncker’s statement “we didn’t hear anything during the two days” made it sound like the former Prime Minister had been kept in the loop. Marco Millen meanwhile testified that the recordings had been authorised by the former Prime Minister.
André Kemmer received a CD reportedly containing a potentially controversial conversation between Juncker and Grand Duke Henri. Luxembourg’s intelligence service then found out that the CD in question did, in fact, not contain an audio file. Another conversation between Mille and Juncker, and Kemmer and Mariotto took place after this discovery.
Marco Mille allegedly said that they had been mistaken after they recorded Loris Mariotto. There was no trace of who had changed the recordings, and the intelligence service’s records had been wiped. To this date, it is not known who had listened to the recording. The service also does not keep written transcripts of the Frisbee affair.
Asked what Mariotto’s motivation could have been, the chief investigator explained that he couldn’t recognise any. As for the affair being leaked to the media, the investigator examined who could have had a possible motive. He dismissed Mille and Kemmer as having motives, but admitted that Schneider could possibly have been motivated to leak the information due to the damage caused to his career. However, there was no evidence for this suspicion.
A technician told the court at the beginning of the session that no audio files were on any of the CDs he examined. The trial continues on Tuesday.
