Acquittal on ANOM evidence: Memmingen Regional Court applies an exclusionary rule

On 21 August 2023 the Memmingen Regional Court acquitted the defendant of four counts of drug trafficking because the ANOM chats, the only evidence, were subject to an exclusionary rule. The FBI's permanent refusal to name the EU third State that hosted the server or to produce its judicial orders made any independent review impossible. This left a gap in legal protection incompatible with the right to a fair trial, and mutual trust cannot operate to the defendant's detriment. Where no orders are available, the prosecution bears the burden of showing that rule-of-law standards were respected. The chamber also held that treating every ANOM user as a suspect amounts to suspicionless mass surveillance whose results cannot be repurposed for criminal proceedings. The acquittal is final.