Germany Arrests Double Agent Recruited by US to Spy on Berlin's NSA Inquiry

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/24621-germany-arrests-double-agent-recruited-by-us-to-spy-on-berlins-nsa-inquiry

German authorities have arrested a man identified by media as a German intelligence officer who allegedly passed secrets to the U.S.

German media warned that if the man is found guilty, it would be “the biggest scandal involving a German—American double agent since the war,” The Daily Telegraph reported.

Federal prosecutors said that a 31-year-old German was arrested on July 2 on suspicion of spying for an unidentified foreign power. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, called the case “a serious matter,” declining to elaborate on the prosecutors’ statement.

“The Chancellor was also informed of this case yesterday,” Eibert told reporters in Berlin.

He declined to comment on reports by Der Spiegel magazine and the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the man worked for Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known by its German acronym BND. The newspapers, which didn’t identify their sources, said the man was suspected of passing on information about a German parliamentary inquiry into the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies in Germany.

Seibert said the inquiry’s committee members had also been informed of the arrest. “I will have to leave the conclusions to you,” he said.