BERLIN, April 23 (Reuters) – German police arrested a parliamentary aide to the head of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the European elections on suspicion of “a particularly serious case” of espionage for the benefit of China, the federal prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday.
Jian G., assistant to MEP Maximilian Krah, is accused of providing Chinese intelligence services with information on the negotiations and decisions of the European Parliament.
The parliamentary assistant, who lives between Brussels and Dresden, in eastern Germany, also spied on Chinese opposition figures in Germany, the prosecution added.
He was arrested Monday in Dresden, the same day as three other German nationals suspected of collaborating with the Chinese Ministry of State Security to help it acquire “innovative technologies that could be used for military purposes”, according to the parquet.
An AfD spokesperson called the information “very worrying”.
These arrests came a week after a visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to China, where the German leader notably tried to convince Beijing to stop supporting the Russian war economy. (Andreas Rinke, Rachel More and Sarah Marsh, written by Miranda Murray; French version Tangi Salaün, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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