Former BND Chief Hanning Detained: Suspected Espionage and Passing of Secret Documents
German police have detained former intelligence service BND chief Augustus Hanning and his former colleague on suspicion of espionage. Manfred D. is suspected of providing Hanning with classified documents in exchange for payment until at least 2022.
Former BND Chief Augustus Hanning Detained on Suspicion of Espionage
German police detained Augustus Hanning, former head of the foreign intelligence service BND, and his former colleague Manfred D. on Tuesday morning. Both face suspicion of espionage, according to archiv.hn.cz, citing the DPA news agency and other German media outlets.
Public broadcasting stations and the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper report that Manfred D. provided Hanning with strictly classified information from the intelligence service in exchange for payment until at least June 2022. Hanning is believed to have used these materials in his business activities and prepared a security analysis based on them at least once for a representative of a foreign intelligence service. According to available information, this was not Russia.
Manfred D. was head of Hanning's office and worked for the BND intermittently until this spring. Hanning, now eighty years old, led the BND from 1998 to 2005, after which he held a high-ranking position at the interior ministry. Following his move to the private sector, he worked as a security consultant.
In its statement, the federal public prosecutor's office clarified that Manfred D. initially worked as Hanning's assistant at the interior ministry and later returned to the BND as head of the intelligence chief's office. "In this position, he had access to numerous pieces of information subject to classification," the prosecutor's office stated.
According to investigative findings, both of the accused apparently agreed in spring 2010 that Manfred D. would procure classified intelligence documents for Hanning in exchange for money. Until at least June 2022, he passed approximately 2,000 documents to him in this manner, many of which contained classified information. The materials were intended exclusively for internal BND use — for instance, to prepare the service leadership for intelligence briefings on the current security situation. These are regular meetings of senior representatives of German ministries and security officials at the office of the federal chancellor.
The federal public prosecutor's office further described how Hanning had maintained intensive contact over many years with a representative of another state intelligence service, to whom he provided political information on an ongoing basis — partly drawn from materials he obtained from Manfred D. The press release does not explicitly state which country received the analysis. It is also unclear whether the prepared analysis actually reached its intended recipient.
Source: Google News CZ — Crime (cs)