The regional court Magdeburg regards a payment of damages of 100,000 euros as the destruction of a gene wheat field for appropriate. The court negotiates at present against six Feldbefreier, which terminated the disputed attempt in April 2008. Institut for plant genetics and cultivated plant research (IPK) had requested 245,000 euros. In an interlocutory judgment the judges cut the amount on 100,000 euros, which now in the detail are to be negotiated.
On 21 April 2008 four women and two men of the initiative gene dirt plowed away the 2500 square meter large gene wheat field of the IPK with heels over. They terminated thereby a cultivation of attempt, against which over 30.000 citizens objections had raised. The experimental field lay in direct proximity of a gene bank with hundreds of old wheat places, which must be cultivated could be polluted for preservation in the open land and by gene wheat. The Secretary of Agriculture at that time Horst Seehofer (CSU) nevertheless let the attempt approve in December 2007.
In opinion of the court the six Feldbefreier acted illegally. However they did that publicly, so that it was an easy for the IPK to require before court payment of damages. It was less easy to compute the accurate sum of the damage. The IPK lawyer refuge Rehberger, former FDP minister of economics of Saxonia-Anhalt and admitting genetic engineering fan, numbered the damage on 245,000 euros. The court regarded a part of Rehbergers computation not conclusive however as and trimmed therefore the demands. After press releases Rehberger wanted to charge for the Feldbefreiern even to displays for the readiness to drive of the institute or for monitoring cameras.
Uwe Schrader, FDP state parliament delegate and chairman of the genetic engineering lobby association Innoplanta, rated the court decision nevertheless as decision, which will strengthen the research the back. Because so far negotiated payment of damages sums moved with public field freeing in the order of magnitude less thousand euros. This mark is clear it more and the sums could still further rise. After the destruction of an attempt with genetically altered apples Institut concerned numbered the damage on at least 700,000 euros.