A German man has been charged with treason for giving secrets to both the CIA and to Russia’s intelligence service.
Markus R, 32, was employed by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND where, prosecutors said, he had access to sensitive documents.
The charges against him include treason, breach of official secrecy and receiving bribes.
The accusation is that he offered his services to the CIA in 2008 and provided it with information about BND operations and personnel abroad.
“In doing so the accused caused serious danger to Germany’s external security,” prosecutors wrote in a statement. “In return, the accused received sums amounting to at least €95,000 from the CIA.”
Der Spiegel magazine reported that 218 documents were passed to the CIA including a list of all BND agents abroad, a summary of an tapped phone call between Hillary Clinton and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, as well as a draft counterespionage strategy. The federal prosecutor’s office offered no comment on the report.
He is also accused of offering to work for Russian intelligence in 2014 and gave me three documents which also brought harm to Germany’s security, the prosecutors said.
He was arrested shortly after in July 2014. After his arrest, the German authorities demanded that the CIA station chief in Berlin be removed.
At the time, the US was already in hot water with Germany over CIA surveillance of Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
Comments
It seems odd, having watched so many double agent films in the cinema and on TV, with so much suspicion and everyone having multiple ID's - how would a secret agent detect another secret agent ?
In case anyone thinks I must be a secret agent to be asking this - I am not. Right now I am more interested in detecting a reliable and sensibly priced TV repair man.