German politicians reacted angrily on Wednesday to news of a suspected US spy in the defense ministry, which came days after the arrest of a German foreign intelligence agency worker as a suspected CIA informant.
After federal prosecutors said authorities had conducted searches in connection with a second spying case, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partners said Washington should remove any US embassy staff involved and cease spying on its ally.
Security sources said the latest suspect to face investigation was from the military and worked in the defense ministry in Berlin, but no arrest appeared to have been made. Other sources close to the investigation said the suspect was a German Foreign Ministry official on assignment at the defense ministry.
Photo: Reuters
The German Ministry of Defense confirmed its premises had been searched, but gave no other details.
“It is not yet clear what is behind this,” German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.
Merkel has already said the arrest last week of a low-level official of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, known as the BND, for spying for the US would, if confirmed, be a “serious case,” but she also says it will not affect transatlantic free-trade talks.
The chancellor faces political fallout for not criticizing US President Barack Obama sufficiently for alleged surveillance in Germany by the US National Security Agency (NSA), which targeted her mobile phone for eavesdropping. The new cases put further pressure on Merkel to react.
Yasmin Fahimi, general secretary of the Social Democrats, who share power with Merkel’s conservatives, urged the “immediate removal of embassy staff involved and the immediate cessation of all other espionage in our country.”
Von der Leyen, who is from Merkel’s party, said the NSA case had “shaken confidence” in the US and it had to be made clear to the intelligence community that “not everything that is possible is politically acceptable.”
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert acknowledged there were “deep differences of opinion” with the US on how to balance the need for security with civil rights, though German officials stress they are heavily reliant on US intelligence.
The 31-year-old BND agent arrested last week admitted to passing documents to a US contact, including details of a parliamentary committee’s investigation of former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden’s allegations of US spying in Germany.
The CIA and other US government agencies declined to comment on the cases. However, US officials acknowledged that the CIA had been involved in recruiting the BND official as an informant and did not dispute German media reports that his initial recruitment occurred two years ago.
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