A man employed by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to observe the activities of Islamists has been arrested on suspicion of passing on sensitive material to extremists.
“The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has managed to expose a suspected Islamist among its associates,” the agency said in a statement, after news organisations published details of the case.
The man has been identified as a 51-year-old Spanish-born German citizen who converted to Islam in 2014, in a telephone recruitment process. He is believed to have sworn an allegiance to the preacher and recruiter Mohamed Mahmoud, a prominent Salafist from Berlin who is believed to be fighting with Islamic State in Syria.
He is accused of revealing agency secrets and of attempting to “pass on sensitive information about the BfV that could have endangered [the agency],” said the BfV spokesman.
In a partial confession the man said his goal had been to infiltrate the BfV and gather information for a terrorist attack on the BfV’s headquarters in the Cologne district of Chorweiler.
The accused also admitted to making Islamist statements under a false name on the internet.
The BfV said it had no information that the man was planning a specific bomb attack on the agency’s headquarters. “There is no evidence so far that there is a concrete threat,” the spokesman said.
The man was described by his employer as having previously “behaved inconspicuously” during his recruitment, training and while undertaking regular duties.
A bank employee and father, the man had been employed by the agency from April 2016 as a lateral entrant with the specific task of observing the Islamic scene in Germany.
According to the spokesman he is accused of “making Islamist statements on the internet using a false name and of revealing internal agency material in internet chatrooms”.
The man’s activity was uncovered by an agency informant tasked with trying to firm up suspicions he was acting against the BfV’s interests. The informant posed as an Islamist sympathiser and managed to engage the man in online conversations in which they discussed a possible attack on the BfV’s Cologne headquarters.
The man’s family supposedly had no knowledge of his conversion to Islam.
The BfV said earlier this month that about 40,000 Islamists were living in Germany, of whom an estimated 9,200 are Salafists or ultra-conservative Islamists.
The interior minister is due to hold a press conference at 11.30am German time.
