Suddenly police stop the bus and then open fire on the arm students hit by a bullet although fell to the ground. 6 students were shot dead 2 more were seriously wounded. 43 students all the age between 18 and 23 were abducted theyve never been seen since just like thousands of others in mexico. A number of Police Officers were subsequently arrested accused of carrying out the murders a number of the weapons used in those crimes were German Military grade g 36 assault rifles made by a heckler and koch. But the German Government hadnt approved their export to this region. Were. It all began in 2005 german arms manufacturer heckler and koch wanted to export thousands of g 36. 00 assault rifles to mexico along with submachine guns so the company submitted an application to the German Economics Ministry in berlin but the Foreign Ministry expressed concern citing Human Rights Violations by Mexican Security forces including abductions and murder and get it all and other states. The Economics Ministry sought a compromise meanwhile heckler and koch was waiting impatiently for permission to export as the companys then Sales Representative from mexico explains we can only identify him as marcus b. And then come to be deformed or we were then asked by sounds whether we could change the designated and use it to feel good or because some ministry had requested that certain aspects shouldnt be mentioned and. Techno and call had originally presented this and you certificate from the Mexican Defense ministry to the German Economics Ministry. The details of the certificate showed clearly that the weapons were partly intended for mexican states considered particularly dangerous. So i wrote an email to my wife from the computer. I had. To ask the head of de camp the official body responsible for arms sales in mexico whether it was possible not to name these 3 states and to issue a new and use so once the Economics Ministry had informed tecla and cost which mexican states would not be approved if the company submitted a new end you certificate where the critical states were no longer mentioned but the strange thing was the exact same number of guns would still be supplied to mexico which surely should have been noticed. But approval for the export was given and the deal began. Over the following years a team from heckler and koch travelled all over mexico showing Police Officers in the army how to use the firearms. Here they are in colima but they also went to the states that were supposedly banned including get a table where the weapons would soon be used. On 19 year old solano for example. This was him dancing at his brothers wedding just days before Security Forces would destroy his life forever. He was a clever child really bright he was always keen to see everything and to learn thats why he went to college now last call. Details of that night haunt the family. A lost brother lay on their tells us what happened. Only there were a number of pastors who was in the 1st one was it when the attack started they were already heading back to the college in the us the police started pursuing them then a Police Vehicle not long after the junction i had to stop them leaving the city. Innocent so the students got out of the box ill know it was one of the 1st to get out he wanted to talk to the police who were blocking the road in the hope that they could proceed the police immediately started shooting. When aldo was hit by a bullet the other screamed for help. They called an ambulance for their friend while running for cover themselves more shots fell. That same night all those family rushed to the hospital in one but. I saw him and he had a bullet wound to his head the bullet went in here and came out here. One of the heckler and koch instructors started to have doubts. In 2010 he testified to state prosecutors against his former employer heckler and koch. It was a damning indictment of colleagues and managers. That led to 2 police raids on the Company Premises and a mammoth investigation. In 2018 the largest trial of its kind in german postwar history finally got underway trial observers took detailed minutes. Jaan fun was one of them. He was previously a weapons inspector for the United Nations and a member of the german parliament. I remember 3 things from the 1st day firstly the charges were read out which included conspiring to commit crimes the 2nd was that the 2 main suspects were not in the room which one has since told the other was half the cox mexico representative who lives in mexico and was allegedly not well enough to travel. So his trial was separated off. With. The defendants included c. E. O. Peter biola and another former heckler and koch c. E. O. To past employees from the marketing to. The company had good cause itself as a codefendant and a secretary from the export department but its the other thing i remember was the initial statements given by the accused where it was totally clear they had no sense of guilt and they think they were really serious about that. The argument was they had received approval for exports to mexico and it was so they exported to mexico they couldnt work out why they were in court that. The end you certificate is the centerpiece of germanys arms control mechanism in this document the buyer declares where the weapons will be delivered and where they will be used ruling out that they will end up anywhere else several different ministries examine the application under the direction of the Economics Ministry. The governments export control office then takes care of the licensing procedure. Noida bought off was president of bof a for 10 years. Hes well acquainted with the procedures and knows those who worked in the Economics Ministry during the period in question. They dont call for 5 they said that id go to the get lost in that 11 call case the colleague involved at the Economics Ministry was not someone who exercised any particularly critical judgment in that regard and. Shall we say to the point that. That official who was in a senior position in the Economics Ministry was one of the 1st witnesses to be called his testimony got off to an uncomfortable start. Thats all you look if the art form for the way its news was asked by the presiding judge to disclose what the mexico deal was all about he answered called one moment and put a huge briefcase on the table guards he pulled out an entire file therefore there was mounted in the the judge asked him what he was doing he said i need to find on the investigation to get the indictment they are going to start a large of spying and theyre going you can see the faces of the state prosecutors turning red because thats not a lot of it is and as i said i witnessed in a German Criminal Court case of his holding the indictment in his hands the until obviously in the. But that wasnt the end of it during questioning the witness revealed that the other ministries also had access to the confidential files. But where they came from that bit he could remember as did the u. N. He actually stated in court we call the ministry for the economy we have a special interest in ensuring that there is none of fractures can survive economically thats from the man responsible for regulating urns exports. Thats true but the export guidelines state that when it comes to arms exports are economic considerations and jobs are not to play around with the kind of whats the legal position they have the court hes familiar with the export of high clients. Back to the courtroom under further questioning by the presiding judge the official from the economics minister stated from the witness stand that human rights were more a work of endeavor. Human rights as a work of endeavor. Thats not with the approval guidelines set up by the governments that. They arent rude with descendants but this question the human rights situation in the recipient country plays a prominent role of the elite also coming from a legal background its clear that its an absolute test criterion and a deal breaking criteria. And indeed the official from the Economics Ministry admitted himself while testifying to the Customs Investigation Bureau that he realized the firearms had only been excluded from parts of mexico on paper. But the economics minister denies any wrongdoing. The ministrys main contact at heckling cost was picked up by a low he was in the docket stood guard but he was acquitted. Well day 2 of the trial peter buyer list stated that these and you certificates are and i quote the wrong instruments owned ineffective me because our gift. This supposedly wrong instrument has for decades been the basis for all of germanys arms exports. Peter biota had been the head judge at the District Court before moving to heckler and koch initially he was the companys Liaison Officer for the authorities and then later c. E. O. Throughout he was responsible for export applications and end use agreements the export control office buffer also understands that the end user agreement is a binding document the fights not well done wait for shooting to our understanding of the law and use it difficult is it an integra part of the licensing. Yet veteran legal expert peter by enough argued in court that end you certificates are not decisive for arms exports and he claimed to know nothing of the real work certificate from mexico. But his correspondence with the chummy official at the Economics Ministry tells a different story. As i was the mayor of this email before its completely clear here the Economics Ministry is telling heckler and koch you cant export to these mexican states but these other ones are ok and yet in the trial all those involved maintained repeatedly that there had never been a list of positive and negative states its absurd that this is only turned up now. But thats not all. When the approval of arms exports to mexico did not appear forthcoming by a lot email colleagues suggesting they pursued what he called the political route. The company made donations to the constituency offices of influential politicians. We tried to speak to peter by a lawyer to with the emerge from the Court One Day id. Be his lawyer ditto creedon fed blocked our cameramen pulling out the sound cable. Peter biola began brandishing his priest case and his lawyer continued to attempt to obstruct us. Mr diallo what do you know about the Party Donations about heckling coffee. They were clearly not willing to talk about donations to politicians. Mexico has never forgotten the missing student teachers. For more than 5 years thousands of people have been taking to the streets every month to demand answers. They include families and friends of the 43. 00 students who disappeared. Even travelling in the crisis torn state of get always dangerous. Civilian militia groups have taken control of the roads and levy socalled customs duties. Are at the mercy of the local commanders. When they spot our camera things get a bit edgy. Yeah. But id always been scarred by the drug war by violence and corruption. To go to get us family is taken care of ill go in this house built with donations. And check. Out any missing. He says closely. Sometimes he opens his eyes we talk to him and then he climbs. We take him with a. Little bit every day we come here and we take care of him. All day and all night we take care of him and yes he can he out and he responds to. Meanwhile the trial in stuttgart was continuing. Evidence was presented in the court called dozens of witnesses. Then on the 20th day something completely unexpected happened. And suddenly the number was clear 15000 emails had slipped through that created a bit of a shock up there in the bench they realized they suddenly had a lot of documents here that hadnt been included in the proceedings at all. And investigation was launched into the missing emails where were they then the name of an Auditing Company came up k p m g. Then it turns out the Customs Criminal Investigation Office leading the investigation had received the emails about the documents for k. P. And she put they had already been filtered and sorted. Called in k p m g shortly after police searched headquarters. Part of their task was to evaluate the stats Electronic Communications marcos being with the company Sales Representative in mexico. If. Karr had asked kate p. M. G. To carry out an internal voluntary investigation. Comprehensible why its enough for the prosecutor to investigate the police and so on so you. K p m g as one of the worlds 4 largest auditing companies. The internal investigation was supposed to support the Customs Criminal Investigation Office in britain bad state criminal Police Office and the Public Prosecutors Office. Why did the authorities agree to cooperate with k. P. N. Ji in the 1st place how close was their cooperation. With the k p m g report confirms the cooperation with the Police Customs investigators and the Prosecutors Office. The customs investigators say they exchanged information with k. P. N. Ji for 3 years. Voice still represents mark wispy and is critical of the fact that the state investigators had agreed to cooperate with the private auditors. And. This is the reason i believe that we also have these socalled pawns in the dark we do not have the people actually responsible for the whole story for initiating it and i dont. Those people are probably more likely to be found in departments of the federal ministry of economics that people at the top of akron call paps of the federal ministry. The k p m g investigation said there were significant irregularities in the stories of the secretary a marketing employee and the representative in mexico and said they were primarily responsible for the crooked arms deals there. The court in strict guard has refused to comment on the proceedings of the ruling. An answer to a written request the Chicago PublicProsecutors Office said the cooperation with k p m g had been helpful. But it also points out that key p. M. G. Findings had also been compared with the information gathered by the office and critically assessed. In september 2018 accompanied by his lawyers brother leo and travel to stuttgart for the trial. The court had already rejected the familys request to appear as joint plaintiff in the criminal proceedings. In the courts opinion the allegedly legal deliveries did not contribute to the concrete acts of injury in question. In the courtroom they are now took 2 photos of his brother out of his backpack because as he later said aldo could not attend the trial himself. The court reacted swiftly. 9 Court Officers around of the guest from mexico until he gave them the pictures of his brother. You know it was all about equipment up there it was all about files and stuff no one ever talked about the victims and i think its important in this whole discussion about arms exports not only the trial to make that clear from time to time and this is about if this is about blood this is about war and not just about sewing machines and refrigerators and that is why this is a very very special moment for me only when living there there for court house to get the pictures of his brother back. In february 2019 the court gave its verdict. The secretary received a 17 month suspended sentence and had to perform 250 hours of community service. A former marketing employee was sentenced to 22 months on probation and had to pay an 80000. 00 euro find a social organizations. Heckler and koch was fined 3700000 euros approximately the Contract Value of the illegally exported weapons. The other defendants including the 2 former c. E. O. s were acquitted. Both heckler and koch and peta biota have refused to give any interviews but deny any wrongdoing. By the Public Prosecutors Office decided not to appeal against the acquittal of byelaw and the other ex c. E. O. While appealing the other rulings we are convinced said the presiding judge in its oral verdict that neither and you certificate as such nor the actual end use can be made a part of the permit in terms of Administrative Law but the former head of buffa the governments export control office doesnt agree. They should administratively law is quite clear that i om part of it. If i may put it cautiously criminal lawyers who do not deal with these things so often may see things differently. And that was probably settled in the stuttgart ruling. 2 months after the stuttgart ruling a court in kiel came to a different conclusion than the court in southern germany. At the trial of the german arms manufacturers exult for illegal arms exports and you certificates were judged to be part of the export licenses. Zigzag had sold 37000. 00 pistols to colombia although the end you certificate said they were destined for the usa. X. Managers of zigzag germany and the c. E. O. Of its u. S. Affiliate were given fines and suspended sentences. This case is also under appeal. Now in Germany Supreme Court must decide whether to deal with the 2 rulings or not. Filming in mexico city in june 29 teams and make a surprising discovery. The soldiers who raise the National