Employee of German EU lawmaker detained as suspected China spy

Karlsruhe, Germany, April 23 (IANS/DPA) An employee of a German member of the European Parliament, lawmaker Maximilian Krah, has been detained in Dresden on suspicion of spying for China, according to security sources.

Federal prosecutors reported the arrest in Dresden on Tuesday, without naming Krah. The suspect is said to have passed on information from the European Parliament to China, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said the suspect was detained by police in Dresden, in the state of Saxony on Monday.

The accused's flats were searched. According to the statement, he is accused of acting as an agent for a foreign secret service.

Several German media outlets also reported that the suspect is an employee of Krah, who is the leading candidate for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the upcoming European Parliament elections in June.

Krah was initially unavailable for comment.

The announcement comes a day after three Germans were arrested in the western German cities of Dusseldorf and Bad Homburg on suspicion of spying for the Chinese secret service.

At the time of their arrest, the suspects were in negotiations about research projects that could be useful for the expansion of China's maritime combat power in particular, according to the prosecutors.

"As the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, we tracked down these people very early on and continued to monitor their behaviour and activities," said the president of the domestic intelligence services, Thomas Haldenwang, at a meeting of his agency in Berlin on Monday.

According to the Federal Public Prosecutor General, those detained are "strongly suspected of spying since an unspecified date before June 2022."

One of the men is said to have procured information on innovative military technologies for an employee of the Chinese secret service MSS who was in China.

To this end, he had "used" the detained couple, who ran a company in Dusseldorf, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.

The company had served as a "medium for establishing contacts and collaborating with people from the German scientific and research community."