Germany has summoned the Iranian ambassador after the arrest of a man suspected of spying on Jews in Berlin for Tehran, possibly as part of an attack plot.
“We will not tolerate any threats to Jewish life in Germany,” the foreign ministry posted on X on Tuesday announcing the summoning of the envoy, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi.
It said the allegations against the suspect arrested in Denmark, a Danish national identified only as Ali S in line with German privacy rules, must be “thoroughly investigated”.
The man was arrested in the eastern Danish city of Aarhus last Thursday, German federal prosecutors said earlier, “strongly suspected of having worked for an intelligence service of a foreign power”.
“In early 2025, Ali S received an order from an Iranian intelligence service to collect information on Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals in Berlin,” the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
He allegedly spied on three properties last month “presumably in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets”.
After his extradition from Denmark, the suspect will be brought before an
investigating judge at Germany’s federal court of justice, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that the case against him was based on findings by the German domestic intelligence service.
Foreign minister Johann Wadephul, speaking after visiting a synagogue on a trip to Odesa, was quoted by German media as saying that, if confirmed, the case “would once again demonstrate that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world”.
Justice minister Stefanie Hubig condemned what appeared to be an “outrageous operation”, adding in a statement that “the protection of Jewish life has the highest priority for the German government”.
German news outlet Der Spiegel said Ali S had photographed buildings including the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society in Berlin, which fosters cultural and scientific cooperation between the two nations, and a site where the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, is said to occasionally stay.
Ali S has Afghan roots and is believed to have been working for the Quds Force, an elite branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Der Spiegel said.
Schuster described the arrest as a “final signal to all those who still play down the hate and annihilation fantasies of the mullah regime against Israel and Jews around the world”.
The Iranian embassy in Berlin rejected the allegations as “unfounded and dangerous accusations” that it said appeared designed to distract from Israel’s recent attacks on Iran.
Germany has stepped up already tight security at Jewish sites across the country since the Hamas attacks on Israel of 7 October 2023.
Last September, police in Munich shot dead a man armed with a rifle after an exchange of fire near the Israeli consulate. Investigators said they believed the suspect had been planning a terrorist attack against the site.
During last month’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel, Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz, a staunch supporter of Israel, said the country was prepared for possible Iranian attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets on German soil.
Germany’s relations with Iran have been historically tense although it is one of three European powers engaged in diplomacy with Tehran over its nuclear programme.
