It is the second high-profile espionage suspicion within two days. An employee of AfD MEP Krah is said to have worked for China. Calls for further consequences are becoming louder.
An employee of the German AfD MEP Maximilian Krah has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China. The Federal Prosecutor General (GBA) reported on the arrest the evening before in Dresden without naming Krah. According to the GBA, the arrested person is said to have passed on information from the European Parliament.
Krah himself initially reacted cautiously to reports about the arrest of an employee. The AfD’s leading candidate for the European elections wrote on If the allegations prove to be true, this would result in the immediate termination of employment.” Krah told the “Bild” newspaper at the airport in Strasbourg that, as far as he knew, his employee had only maintained “contacts with official Chinese bodies in the embassy.”
Information passed on from the EU Parliament
According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the employee was arrested by the Saxony State Criminal Police Office on Monday in Dresden. The accused’s apartments were therefore searched. According to the GBA, he is accused of acting as an agent for a foreign secret service in a particularly serious case.
The German national Guo is said to be an employee of a Chinese secret service. Since 2019 he is said to have worked for a German member of the European Parliament, and according to ARD and “Zeit” he was already working for Krah back then. According to the Federal Prosecutor General, he has repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament since last January. It was also said that he spied on Chinese opposition members in Germany for the intelligence service. During the course of the day he was to be brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice.
Krah on the way to crisis talks in Berlin
The AfD’s federal office said: “The reports about the arrest of one of Mr. Krah’s employees on suspicion of espionage are very worrying. Since we currently have no further information about the case, we have to wait for further investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General.” An AfD spokesman says the party will do everything it can to support the investigation.
The party leadership called for a crisis meeting. Krah is on his way to Berlin, party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said before a meeting of the AfD parliamentary group. “We will sit down with him this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest,” said Chrupalla. “We see it as absolutely worrying if, of course, an employee was arrested here (…).” Chrupalla and Weidel did not respond to questions from journalists as to whether Krah was still the right top candidate and announced a statement after the interview for “Wednesday morning at the latest.”
Krah’s withdrawal as AfD’s top candidate is called for
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) said: “If the accusation is confirmed, it will hit the heart of our democracy.” Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) called the espionage allegations “extremely serious.” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) said that it was sadly not surprising “that in the last few months we have increasingly seen what many already knew, that anti-democrats around the world are trying to undermine democracies from within, using various means.”
Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer reacted indignantly. “Anyone who spies, anyone who accepts bribes, is damaging Germany, betraying the people and our country,” explained the CDU politician in Schmilka, Saxony. “I think it’s disgusting and out of character.”
Sharp criticism also came from other politicians, some of whom called for Krah’s withdrawal. CDU parliamentary director Thorsten Frei told the “Rheinische Post”: “It is absolutely out of the question to have a top candidate who has to deal with such allegations.” The FDP MP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann also criticized the AfD European candidate Petr Bystron, who defends himself against accusations that he may have received money for pro-Russian propaganda: “Both should, based on human discretion, resign their candidacy instead of further damaging our country.” , she told the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”.
Green Party leader Omid Nouripour sees the AfD as a threat to national security. “There is an urgent need for clarification about the opaque relationships of their top candidate Krah with representatives of Russia and China,” he wrote on
More cases of China espionage
The day before, three suspected spies for China were arrested in Düsseldorf and Bad Homburg. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office had the three Germans arrested on suspicion of espionage. The two men and a woman are said to have obtained information about military technology in Germany in order to pass it on to the Chinese secret service. At the time of the arrests, the accused were in negotiations about research projects that could be particularly useful for expanding China’s maritime combat power, it was said.
The suspected woman is now in custody. An investigating judge has now executed arrest warrants against all three of those affected, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced on Tuesday in Karlsruhe. The two other suspects had already been taken into custody the day before. The reason is “suspected secret service agent activity”.
Beijing speaks of defamation
China rejected reports of its own spies in Germany. “The intention behind this hype is quite obvious, namely to slander China, suppress it and undermine the atmosphere of cooperation between China and Europe,” a Beijing Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
China has always adhered to the principles of mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. In Germany, the “Cold War mentality” must be overcome. Emphasizing so-called espionage risks should not be misused for political operations against China.