Anger as Germany Finds Second US Spy Suspect
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - German politicians reacted angrily to news of a possible US spy in the defence ministry, coming just days after the arrest of a German foreign intelligence agency worker as a suspected CIA informant.
After the federal prosecutors said authorities had conducted searches in connection with a second spying case, Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition partners said Washington should remove any US embassy staff involved and cease spying on its ally.
Security sources told Reuters that the latest suspect to face investigation was from the military and worked in the Defence Ministry in Berlin, but no arrest appeared to have been made.
Other sources close to the investigation said the suspect was a German Foreign Ministry official on assignment at the Defence Ministry.
The Defence Ministry confirmed its premises had been searched but gave no other details.
"It is not yet clear what is behind this," Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, in an excerpt of Thursday's edition.
Al Jazeera's Nick Spicer, reporting from Berlin, said: "It is probably safe to assume the member of the armed forces is of a high enough rank to have access to information that could be of interest to the Americans if it is proved the Americans have been trying to use him as a spy.
"The news comes a week after a double agent was identified as a spy within Germany's intelligence agency who had collected over 200 documents and given them to the CIA in exchange for over $30,000.
"Some of the documents were about a parliamentary committee looking precisely at the question of US surveillance on German citizens and the tapping of Angela Merkel's mobile phone."
Merkel faces political fallout for not criticising US President Barack Obama sufficiently for alleged surveillance in Germany by the US National Security Agency (NSA), which targeted her mobile phone for eavesdropping.