Intelligence

Yahoo! News - German Arrested for Spying for Bulgaria

Yahoo! News - German Arrested for Spying for Bulgaria

Fri Oct 17,11:20 AM ET
By Mark Trevelyan

BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities have arrested a veteran intelligence agent on suspicion of betraying secrets to a female Bulgarian spy, sources close to the case said on Friday.

They said the 64-year-old agent, a Balkan specialist with Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency, was arrested at his home in Munich on October 9.

The federal prosecutors' office in Karlsruhe said in a statement that the unnamed man was suspected of passing secret documents to the woman spy between late 1999 and last month.

It did not name the foreign country, but a source with knowledge of the case told Reuters it was Bulgaria.

In Sofia, the head of Bulgarian military counter-intelligence said such reports were an attempt to smear the ex-communist country before it joins NATO (news - web sites) next year.

"There are thousands of ways to blacken a person... similar schemes could be used to blacken a country as well," Orlin Ivanov told state radio.

DIVORCE AND DRINK

Justice and security sources said the German agent had long worked in the Balkans in human intelligence gathering and had contact with other foreign intelligence agencies.

They said his motives were not known, but he was coping with a number of personal problems, including divorce and alcohol. He was not believed to have had an affair with the Bulgarian agent.

"This wasn't a love affair," one source said. "We don't know yet what the motives were or whether he received money."

The agent has been interrogated by federal prosecutors and held in investigative custody since October 9 -- an indication that the security breach was serious, sources said.

Der Spiegel magazine said in a report in its online edition the German government was outraged over the alleged spying by a friendly nation. As well as joining NATO next year, Bulgaria aims to win entry to the European Union (news - web sites) in 2007.

NATO countries protested recently at plans by Bulgaria's prime minister to appoint a former communist spy as his security adviser. The issue was resolved this week when the official, Brigo Asparuhov, turned down the appointment.

The German government refused to comment on the alleged German-Bulgarian spy affair.

Petio Petev, minister plenipotentiary at the Bulgarian embassy in Berlin, said he was perplexed by reports of the case.

"We have excellent relations with Germany, so it's a very strange publication (in) my personal opinion," he told Reuters.

Petev said the embassy had not been contacted by German officials, but had been in touch with its own foreign ministry in Sofia to brief it on the reports.

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