Proved right through appeal
The Hamburg-based defence attorney Gerhard Strate has set himself the ambitious goal of bailing out Alexander Falk after the New Economy crash
by Anna v. Münchhausen
Frankfurter Allgemeine on Sunday, 05/12/2004, No. 49, p. 61
Even someone used to success can sustain a defeat. Gerhard Strate can still recall exactly his greatest disappointment. One sunny morning in Cape Town, the Hamburg-based attorney was jogging along the beach – magnificent scenery, brilliant blue skies. His mobile rings. His office in Hamburg with the news that the Federal Court has rejected the appeal against the conviction of Monika Weimar. Finito, end of story, the final curtain. The last word after a trial involving several courts which firmly established Strate’s reputation as the man for hopeless cases. He lit up a cigarette, hypnotized briefly by the breaking waves - and continued jogging. “You mustn’t let disappointments get to you,” he remarked, fishing another Camel from the packet, and revealing a slight nuance to the deep tone of his voice that betrays the total bewilderment he felt at the time.
Shelves heavy with specialist literature, dark purple field-grown roses, walls adorned by large-format works by an American photorealist: Strate’s chambers convey the impression that he has at last found his place here. Yet, he is well able to refute the image of the smooth, shrewd advocate. Admittedly, he can express himself in typical polished legal fashion, but in a surprisingly soft voice, taking the liberty now and again of hesitating just a little before answering. “Cases such as the Weimar case strengthen your profile because you are prepared to show endurance. At times, however, the case almost took me to the brink of ruin: countless trips and preparations – and all for a fee of just 500 marks a day.”
That was Strate’s most prominent trial to date. The case that now sees the 54-year old defence attorney in the headlines is the complete opposite. This time round, the client is not a lower middle class mother, but Alexander Falk, the 35-year old heir to a publishing company and dot.com businessman. This time the charges do not involve a family drama, but share-price manipulation, major fraud and tax evasion. And this time, Falk, the “King of Pöseldorf“, also referred to as Sascha and who loved to be seen on his yacht, failed to engage the sympathy of the public. All those years ago, most of the media had grave reservations about Weimar’s guilt, which undoubtedly affords a defence attorney the necessary momentum.
The American star attorney Alan Dershowitz once claimed: “The worse the image of the accused, the more interesting the case.” Does Strate agree? “A negative image undoubtedly adds a certain thrill. Only, I find myself unable to detect any negative image in the case of Alexander Falk. He is one of the most intelligent persons I have ever met. He is highly motivated and extremely well prepared.” That is hardly surprising since the accused has been remanded in custody for the last 18 months. This is how the prosecution sees it: After Alexander Falk had sold his father’s street map publishing company to Bertelsmann, he took over an unspectacular web-hosting business called Ision, supposedly designed to set up portals for third parties. Not a bad idea - but Falk was aspiring to greater things. Together with five partners, now all also co-defendants, he manipulated sales figures, so the investigators claim, pushing up share prices, and ultimately selling the company to the British company Energis plc for 762 million euro. Energis, permanently overstretched as a result of the deal, is now claiming damages from Falk under civil law.
The investigation notes now fill some 700 folders, the bill of indictment 288 pages; Falk took on Hans-Hermann Tiedje, former editor in chief of the newspaper “Bild”, as his PR consultant, endless correspondence was exchanged, even threatening letters, and the co-defendants no longer exactly treat each other with kid gloves. From Strate’s office at Holstenwall, you can just make out in the mist the brick building that is the remand prison across at Holstenglacis. All attempts by the defence to have the arrest warrant against its client repealed have so far been in vain. The reason given: danger of absconding. “In my opinion, the Hamburg judiciary is on completely the wrong track this time,” maintains the attorney. A New Economy victim has to pay the price. Possibly even because of losses sustained by judges or prosecutors as private small-time investors ......
Colleagues say Strate is like a “dog with a bone” – he is patient, hardworking and obviously highly gifted when it comes to dissecting minor details in legal terms and lending these a cryptic significance. In the Falk case, material that may be of great import in terms of evidence is to be found primarily in electronic media – if the 18 million pages were to be printed out, it would be child’s play to knock down any jurisprudence expert. However, two to three percent at the most would be of any interest or indeed relevance. But how do you identify what is relevant? Using fairly obvious search terms, the prosecutors went through the files with a fine-toothed comb – password-protected files and Excel files were not searched. “Here”: Strate reaches to his shelves and picks out a printout from file number xyz, a business plan “of major significance”, which the prosecution only had as an illegible facsimile. Not only their talent for solving crimes, but an American password-recovery program helped the defence to crack the coded files. It sometimes took up to three hours to open a document. In the words of Albert Camus: One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
And, likewise, we can also imagine how Strate orchestrates findings of this nature in the courtroom. He is undoubtedly talented in becoming loud and emotional at exactly the right time – some may even say dramatic. In such a moment he might even ask for a break in order to calm himself down. A lovely example from the book of lawyers’ tricks. On the one hand, it gives him time to go through his own arguments again while, on the other hand, the court is generally impressed to note that, having just allowed himself to be carried away by his own emotions, the defence attorney is now calling himself to order.
Legal finesse is also called for in connection with another of Strate’s clients: the fundamentalist Mounir al Motassadeq was accused before the Hamburg High Court of Appeals of being an accessory to murder in connection with the 9/11 attacks. Another text-book case. Although Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the masterminds behind al-Qaeda, has issued exonerating statements, how were these obtained in America? Can they be used?
Pulling one over on the investigators, getting there faster, identifying leaks – here and there a little of the romantic impetus of Strate’s youth still shines through. Although his attire (dark business suit, deep red tie) no longer has anything in common with the parka-clad law student who, in the mid-seventies, was a member of the communist students’ union. During a demonstration against increased fares, he clashed with the police while trying to help a disabled fellow student. Arrest, trial for resisting state authority - and his first successful appeal.
Something he will never forget. Basically, however, he has no illusions. “A defence attorney will have ninety defeats to every ten successes. It is not true that only innocent people are being persecuted everywhere.” He claims that the Hamburg judiciary now deserves to be intimidated. From his early days, he can still remember how some of the judges were “gnarly, stubborn old characters, confident and impossible to sidetrack, be it by the defence or ridiculous motions submitted by the prosecution.”
Perhaps everything might improve when the judicial reform, for which the Federal Minister of Justice is currently campaigning, has been passed. One of the plans is to reduce the legal process to two stages of appeal. Strate, who delights in pitting all the appeal options against each other, is sceptical: “I believe that this will put too great a strain on the judiciary because there are not enough judges to assess if the decisions reached are free from legal errors. The right of review is a case for the specialists.”
Indeed, specialists like Strate. This much is true: if his client Falk is not acquitted, the Hamburg-based “appeal terrier” will once again be called upon to demonstrate his endurance.
Boxed text:
“A defence attorney will have ninety defeats to every ten successes,” claims Strate.
A dog with a bone
Son of an engineer, Gerhard Strate was born in Thuringia in 1950. His biography thereafter is dictated wholly by the Hanseatic region: he grew up in Schwarzenbek near Hamburg, attended school in Geesthacht, and studied at the University of Hamburg. While still a student and a member of the Communist League of West Germany (KBW), he clocked his first experience in practical jurisprudence – as the accused. He was never radical, remarks the defence attorney today. “Yet, I was always convinced that civil rights have to be defended rigorously.” And the fact that the judiciary has to accept that its decisions are reviewed meticulously. That established his reputation as a star attorney.
His clients include prominent figures such as Monica Seles or Gert Heidemann who came forward with the Hitler diaries; also Henning Beer, member of the RAF. Three times he was successful in having clients, already lawfully sentenced, retried; a very rare achievement. The most famous of these was Monika Weimar. Ultimately, she was indeed convicted of killing her daughters following a spectacular appeal. Two days ago saw the start of the trial with his current top client, Alexander Falk.