Germany charges army staffer with spying for Iran

A German-Afghan who worked for years as a translator and adviser to the German armed forces (Bundeswehr) has been charged with treason for handing state secrets to Iranian intelligence, federal prosecutors said Friday.

Abdul S., whose full name was not given in line with German privacy laws, is suspected of providing Iranian intelligence 18 classified documents, prosecutors said.

German media outlet Spiegel Online reported at the time of the arrest that the man had access to “sensitive information on troops in Afghanistan.”

The German government lodged an official complaint with Iran when the 50-year-old was arrested in January. Iran denied the allegations. 

The man is expected to go on trial soon.

The Bundeswehr has about 1,300 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led noncombat mission Resolute Support.

According to German intelligence, Iran, Russia, China and Turkey are the main countries engaged in espionage in Germany.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  Germany’s role in NATO

  West Germany officially joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 1955. However, it wasn’t until after reunification in 1990 that the German government considered “out of area” missions led by NATO. From peacekeeping to deterrence, Germany’s Bundeswehr has since been deployed in several countries across the globe in defense of its allies.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  Bosnia: Germany’s first NATO mission

  In 1995, Germany participated in its first “out of area” NATO mission as part of a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the deployment, German soldiers joined other NATO member forces to provide security in the wake of the Bosnian War. The peacekeeping mission included more than 60,000 troops from NATO’s member states and partners.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  Keeping the peace in Kosovo

  Since the beginning of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, some 8,500 German soldiers have been deployed in the young country. In 1999, NATO launched an air assault against Serbian forces accused of carrying out a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists and their civilian supporters. Approximately 550 Bundeswehr troops are still stationed in Kosovo.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  Patrolling the Aegean Sea

  In 2016, Germany deployed its combat support ship “Bonn” to lead a NATO mission backed by the EU in the Aegean Sea. The mission included conducting “reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of illegal crossings” in Greek and Turkish territorial waters at the height of the migration crisis. Germany, Greece and Turkey had requested assistance from the trans-Atlantic alliance.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  More than a decade in Afghanistan

  In 2003, Germany’s parliament voted to send Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Germany became the third-largest contributor of troops and led the Regional Command North. More than 50 German troops were killed during the mission. Nearly a thousand soldiers are still deployed in Afghanistan as part of Resolute Support.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  German tanks in Lithuania

  Forming part of NATO’s “enhanced forward presence” in the Baltic states, 450 Bundeswehr soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania so far in 2017. The battalion-size battlegroups there are led by Germany, Canada, the UK and US to reinforce collective defense on the alliance’s eastern flank. It forms the “biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defence in a generation,” according to NATO.

• Germany’s NATO missions

  Taking over the leadership

  The Bundeswehr is due to take over leadership of NATO’s multinational Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) at the start of 2019. The rapid reaction force has been set up to counter potential Russian aggression on the alliance’s eastern flank.

  Author: Lewis Sanders IV

cw/rt (AP, dpa)

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