22:40 22/08/2021
An employee of the British embassy in Berlin was arrested after spying for Russia. It seems like news from the time of the Cold War, but it is "business as usual". Especially in Berlin, where espionage has a tradition.
David S. is the name of the person who was arrested on August 10 in Pocdam by German counterintelligence agents, the BKA. The reason for the arrest warrant is given in four sentences by the Prosecution: "David S. worked until the moment of his arrest as a local employee at the British embassy in Berlin. He has handed over to a representative of the Russian secret service, at least once, documents that fell into his hands during the course of his work. As a reward for this, the accused received cash in an unknown amount. The arrest was made following joint investigations by German and British authorities."
The Berlin press has many questions
Spectacular occasion? Not at all. The chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the British Parliament, Tom Tugendhat, considers the suspect as a small fish, it is said in a news of the German news agency, dpa. She quotes the politician as saying in an interview with British television, the BBC: "We are talking about someone who is very low in the hierarchy, someone who has made some wrong decisions and perhaps betrayed his country."
Tugendhat speculates that by observing the person in question for months, the British and Germans may have obtained useful information about the work the Russians are doing in Berlin. Journalists in the capital are therefore curious to learn more and asked these questions during the government conference held in Berlin on the day of the arrest:
- Will the Russian ambassador be summoned?
- Are you thinking of imposing sanctions?
- Have the German authorities identified the representatives of the Russian secret services? And if so: Is he an employee of the Russian embassy in Berlin?
German government responses spared
Responses so far have been sparing. A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said that the information according to which the secret activity of the arrested person was ordered by the Russian secret services, is taken "very seriously". "Secret revelations on German soil against a close alliance partner is something we cannot accept." Therefore, further investigations of the General Investigation will be carefully followed.
A spokesman for the German Ministry of Justice is also attached to these statements, who adds: "Of course, I cannot provide more information than that provided by the General Prosecutor's Office in the press release. Therefore, I ask you to address your questions directly to the General Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe." Straight from said to done. Answer: "Please understand that for the investigation process we cannot provide other data than those contained in the press statements of August 11, 2021."
What is known is that David S. is not the classic diplomat sent from London to Berlin.
He was employed as a "local employee" of the British embassy in Berlin. German employees of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution have long been convinced that Russian moneylenders are very active in Berlin and that they try to obtain secret information with financial lure. In the current report of the German secret service, which is also responsible for counterintelligence, four "main actors who carry out espionage and try to gain influence in Germany" are mentioned, in this order: the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turkey.
Russia in the focus of the German Constitutional Defense
Russia is watched carefully by the German Constitutional Protection. The said report mentions three cases during which it was intended to damage the "political relations of the community of Western states", of which only one case occurred in the territories of Germany:
- The poison attack on a British intelligence officer, who was previously an officer of the Russian army's secret service, GRU, and defected, Sergey Kripal and his daughter, carried out in Salisbury, in March 2018.
- The killing of a Georgian man in a busy parking lot in Berlin in August 2019.
- Poison attack on opposition politician Alexei Navalny in August 2020 in Russia.
Given these serious cases, the arrest of suspected spy David S. seems light-hearted. The prosecution does not say what documents he gave to the Russians. Even the newspaper "Bild", which has a good network of information, does not give details about the indictment, but embellishes the article by borrowing from the fictional world of the famous spy of the cinema: James Bond, called 007. In comparison, the current arrestee is a "00Nobody".
"Bild" and "00Askushi" newspapers
If it is true, what the "Bild" journalists have discovered, then David S. is bald and no taller than 1,75 meters. "Is the Russian James Bond of Berlin - Putin's spy?", asks the newspaper? And decorates the text like in the movies:
- "The police, BKA and Constitutional Protection went late in the evening to make the arrest. At 11 o'clock in the evening in Pocdam, in an inconspicuous four-story building, modern construction, in the "Neubau" style. There is no Aston Martin car parked in front of the building, but the spy's Ford Fiesta. The police searched the two-room apartment with a balcony and shuttered windows until four in the morning seated. The birds are chirping. The day begins to dawn in the mundane Pocdam, where millionaires and billionaires live, but also generals of the Stasi, the secret service of the former East Germany."
The fact that David S. lives in Pocdam fits this almost stale and clichéd story of Berlin as the capital of spies very well. Because the two cities are connected to each other by the legendary bridge, the Glinike Bridge. During the time of divided Germany, the border ran right here in the middle. The spies arrested by the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, were exchanged in this historical place. Steven Spielberg's film "Bridge of Spies" is about this. Even in John Le Carré's film, "The spy, where the cold came from", the dramatic scenes take place in Pocdam.
Surely the investigators know where the spy David S. met with those who gave him the task. While they have been observing the two sides for a long time. The meetings may have taken place in the cafes of Berlin's government district. The British Embassy, where 57-year-old David S. worked, is not far from the Russian Embassy. Or did they meet in Berlin's sprawling Tiergaten park, and exchange important information? In this area there are many opportunities for meetings and fantasy knows no bounds.
Perhaps it turns out that the story of the agent has more to do with the banal demands of everyday life. According to the Prosecutor's Office, the case of David S. is one of many other cases. Arrests and charges on suspicion of espionage are routine. David S. is not the only agent to be discovered during 2021 in Berlin. A city, where there are thought to be thousands of spies because of the numerous embassies from all over the world, the seat of the parliament and the government. But only a few of them are revealed.
One of many cases
For example, Jens F.. The prosecution filed a lawsuit against him in February 2021. He had worked for a firm engaged by the German parliament, the Bundestag, to check the security of electronic devices. In order to have access to the right equipment, Jens F., aged fifty or so, had the plans and sketches of the parliament building in hand. With the somewhat rounded language of the Prosecutor's Office, this sounds like this: "Part of the task was the implementation of the control provided by law, of electrical equipment that is moved from one place to another, in the buildings used by the parliament."
The maximum in the segment from the end of July 2017 to the beginning of September 2017, Jens F., who according to the information of the television ZDF, was a former officer of the People's Army in East Germany, and an employee of the secret service, Stasi, -has decided "on his own initiative" to provide information to the Russian secret service. "For this he had stored electronic documents in PDF format on a data carrier, which he handed over to an employee of the Russian embassy in Berlin, who works primarily for the Russian military's secret service, the GRU." In the case of David S., the Prosecution has not yet spoken as concretely as in the case of Jens F.. We are waiting for what will come out. Maybe in the end nothing: Because we are dealing with secret services.../DW
Source of information @TvKlan: Read more at: www.botasot.al
