Ex-BND President August Hanning, who is suspected of espionage, is to be brought before an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe today. Meanwhile, politicians from the SPD and the Greens are calling for consequences and are suggesting a ban on follow-on jobs for former high-ranking secret service employees.
The Vice President of the German Bundestag, Omid Nouripour, told the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”: “The Hanning case shows how sensitive private-sector consulting jobs are for former top secret keepers.” Nouripour demanded that the federal government should examine follow-up jobs for high-ranking intelligence officials and prohibit them from lobbying in the security sector after they leave office.
Hanning was arrested on Tuesday in North Rhine-Westphalia. Federal prosecutors accuse him of secret service spying, treasonous spying, spying on state secrets and attempted treason.
An investigating judge is expected to announce the arrest warrant against Hanning today and decide whether to pre-trial detention. Hanning's former office manager at the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Manfred D., had already been taken into custody the day before for aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous spying.
Hanning's employees are said to have obtained secret documents for 12 years
According to the information, they probably agreed in 2010 that the ex-office manager should continually provide Hanning, who had left office five years earlier, with valuable BND intelligence for a fee. Hanning is said to have used this information profitably in his consulting work. According to the status of the investigation, D. is said to have provided his former boss with almost 2,000 documents by June 2022.
Accordingly, Hanning would have had information over a period of possibly twelve years that was intended exclusively for internal matters of the German foreign secret service. In one case, he is said to have used secret information to prepare an analysis for an employee of a foreign intelligence security apparatus. “It has not yet been possible to determine whether the product reached the addressee,” said the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Which country it was about remained unclear. The head of the Parliamentary Control Committee for the Intelligence Services, Marc Henrichmann (CDU), said in the ZDF “heute journal”: “We don’t know that in full either.”
Hanning headed the Federal Intelligence Service from 1998 to 2005, after which he was State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Hanning then switched to the private sector and worked as a security consultant.
Henrichmann called for a comprehensive investigation into the espionage allegations. “It’s now time to turn everything upside down,” said the CDU politician on ZDF’s “heute journal”. When it comes to clarification, “no stone should be left unturned,” he also emphasized in the ARD “Tagesthemen”. When asked whether the rules that were tightened years ago were sufficient for officials after leaving office, he answered “probably no”.
