An employee of the Federal Intelligence Service is said to have spied for Russia.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin FDP Federal Deputy Wolfgang Kubicki fears that the affair involving a suspected Russian spy at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) could jeopardize cooperation with other partner services.
“It wouldn’t be the first exposed Russian spy in Europe this year, but if information from the BND really got to Russia, it would make cooperation with our partners enormously difficult,” the member of the Bundestag told the Handelsblatt.
On Wednesday, the federal prosecutor’s office had an employee of the federal intelligence service arrested for allegedly acting as an agent for Moscow. The accused is a German citizen and is suspected of treason. The man is in custody.
The SPD politician Ralf Stegner, a member of the Bundestag’s secret service committee, spoke of a “serious” process: “The circumstances and background of this case must be thoroughly clarified in order to be able to draw possible consequences,” he told the Handelsblatt.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Kubicki demanded that the facts be analyzed in detail and that existing employment relationships be checked to see whether there were other spies in their own ranks. “While the Federal Minister of the Interior wants more checks on hunters and sports shooters using the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a Russian spy can apparently do whatever he wants with the BND before he is exposed,” criticized the FDP politician.
Buschmann on BND case: “Important blow against Russian espionage”
Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann also emphasized the importance of the case. “If the suspicion is confirmed, an important blow against Russian espionage has been struck here,” wrote the FDP politician on Twitter on Thursday evening. “It shows how vigilant we have to be.”
According to the Attorney General, the accused Carsten L. is said to have transmitted information that he obtained in the course of his work to a Russian intelligence service this year. The content is a “state secret” within the meaning of the Criminal Code.
According to the Criminal Code, state secrets are “facts, objects or knowledge that are only accessible to a limited group of people and that must be kept secret from a foreign power in order to avert the risk of serious damage to the external security of the Federal Republic of Germany”.
According to the penal code, treason can be punished with a prison sentence of at least five years or life imprisonment in particularly serious cases such as the current case. This is the case, for example, if the perpetrator has abused a responsible position that places him under a special obligation to protect state secrets.
>> Read also: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution examines suspected espionage in the Ministry of Economic Affairs
BND President Bruno Kahl said that out of consideration for the ongoing investigations, his authority would not publicly comment on the details of the case until further notice. “Restraint and discretion are very important in this particular case.”
With Russia, on the other hand, we are dealing with an actor “whose unscrupulousness and willingness to use violence we have to reckon with,” added the head of the German foreign intelligence service.
The SPD foreign politician Nils Schmid called for decisive action against Russia. The federal government must counteract Moscow’s hybrid warfare vigilantly, Schmid said on Deutschlandfunk.
Russia believes that all means are possible, as various poison attacks have already shown. The turning point mentioned by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also means a change in policy from dialogue with Russia to deterrence.
More: Putin is increasingly slipping away from the war in Ukraine