Operation Spring
Director Angelika Schuster
Countries Austria
Duration 95 min
Synopsis
On a May morning in 1999, 850 police officers broke into refugees' apartments and dormitories all over Austria. The code-name for the police raid was “Operation Spring”. It was the biggest police operation carried out in the country since 1945. In total, around 100 Africans were arrested. The media stated that, thanks to the first “large-scale telephone tapping operation”, the authorities managed to catch the bosses of an international Nigerian drug trafficking ring. Over the following years, it showed itself to be the largest ever legal case brought against Africans in Austria. Almost all of the accused ended up being found guilty. The film seeks to judge whether the accused had any chance of a fair trial.
On a May morning in 1999, 850 police officers broke into refugees' apartments and dormitories all over Austria. The code-name for the police raid was “Operation Spring”. It was the biggest police operation carried out in the country since 1945. In total, around 100 Africans were arrested. The media stated that, thanks to the first “large-scale telephone tapping operation”, the authorities managed to catch the bosses of an international Nigerian drug trafficking ring. Over the following years, it showed itself to be the largest ever legal case brought against Africans in Austria. Almost all of the accused ended up being found guilty. The film seeks to judge whether the accused had any chance of a fair trial.