Wolfgang Vogel, a shadowy East Berlin lawyer who arranged superpower spy swaps during the Cold War, was acquitted on Friday by a Berlin court of charges that he blackmailed East Germans trying to emigrate to the West.
The state court ruled prosecutors failed to prove Vogel extorted money from East Germans in exchange for their exit from the former communist state."This ruling shows the history of German-German relations, especially in humanitarian matters, still has to be written," Vogel said after the acquittal was read in a packed courtroom.
"I would love to contribute to the writing of that history but not with the state prosecutor breathing down my back."