IntelNews – by JOSEPH FITSANAKIS
Just days after announcing the arrest of an intelligence officer on charges of spying for the United States, German authorities say they are investigating a second individual on suspicion of espionage. Federal prosecutors said yesterday that the individual in question is a German citizen and is under “initial suspicion of activity for an intelligence agency” of a foreign country.
They refused to provide further information and added that an arrest had not yet been made. But German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said on Wednesday that the subject of the investigation is suspected of spying for the United States. The news comes less than a week after an officer of the BND, Germany’s main external intelligence organization, was found to have allegedly spied for the US Central Intelligence Agency for over two years.
According to Süddeutsche’s sources, the second suspect works for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defense. German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that the unnamed individual specializes in “global security policy” and that he came under the suspicion of Germany’s military counterintelligence agency because of his “close proximity to alleged American intelligence operatives”.
Later on Wednesday, German federal government spokesman Steffen Seibert confirmed that Berlin had opened “investigations in two cases of suspected espionage, on very serious suspicions”.
Seibert refused to elaborate, but added that police had raided a number of properties in the German capital. Meanwhile, Germany’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told the Saarbrücker Zeitung that he failed to understand why Washington would want to spy on his country.
“We talk to each other all the time, and no side keeps its views secret”, he told the Saarland-based newspaper.
“The attempt to use conspiratorial tactics to find out about Germany’s position is not simply unseemly, it is unnecessary”. But an unnamed former senior intelligence official, who has liaised extensively with the BND,protested to The Washington Post that “the Germans do lots and lots of stuff and don’t tell us everything they do”. As an example, he mentioned the issue of “gaps between the two countries in their commitment to efforts to block any nuclear weapons ambitions by Iran”.
Last Friday, the US Ambassador to Berlin, John B. Emerson, was summoned to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the first espionage case. He was at the ministry again yesterday, but it is not known whether that was connected to the second case. Peter Claussen, a spokesman at the US Embassy in Berlin, said Wednesday’s meeting had been scheduled on Tuesday at the Embassy’s request.
“We talk to each other all the time, and no side keeps its views secret”, he told the Saarland-based newspaper.”
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 😆
Did he really say that?
With a straight face?
That aside, Id’ be far more worried about Mossad spies if I were Germany.