Sex and Secrets: Trial of Gay Spy Threatens to Embarrass German Intelligence

• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

Then, the two men fell in love. Afrim moved into Anton's apartment. The BND agent should have reported this to his superiors, but he didn't. The professional and personal relationship between the two men continued in Kosovo unnoticed for about two more years. The BND was satisfied with K.'s work, and in early 2007 it extended his assignment until 2009.

But then K.'s wife contacted the BND. The couple had had a serious argument during K.'s Christmas vacation at the end of 2007. K.'s wife told the BND officials that her husband had removed her name from his life insurance policy and made his interpreter the beneficiary instead. She said that she could provide proof in the form of a letter from the insurance company.

Since then, the dispute has revolved around who exactly can be accused of misconduct -- aside from the fact that the agent and his interpreter were required to report their relationship to the BND. Are they simply being sacrificed as "pawns" by a homophobic agency, as their attorneys claim?

Or is there more to the case, and is it really about the betrayal of state secrets? And why can't the BND solve its problems internally, as every spy novel aficionado would expect?

Passing on Secrets in the Bedroom

Instead, the BND petitioned the federal prosecutor general to launch an investigation and used a false pretext to order its two employees, the agent and the interpreter, to return to Munich, where they were arrested, K. on the platform at the Großhesselohe train station and Afrim at his hotel. They were released the next day, apparently because there was insufficient incriminating evidence to justify detaining them.

The two men gave up their apartment in Kosovo and moved together to a town outside Stuttgart, where they are now awaiting trial after having spent 40 days in pretrial detention last spring.

It will be a difficult case for the Munich court. The judges will have to get to grips with the complicated situation in Kosovo and within the intelligence community. Particular attention will be paid to K.'s meetings with his sources. Reports about such conversations with informants are normally transmitted directly to the BND via secure networks.

The federal prosecutor general is accusing the agent of having made these classified reports "accessible" to his domestic partner. In addition, he is charged with having passed on internal BND information about individuals and structures, as well as a document that contained classified information from a European partner agency, apparently British intelligence. Anton K. is accused of divulging classified information either through careless talk, by leaving it on the screen of an open laptop or by revealing it "in the bedroom."

Risking Damage

The allegations against Murat A., who is believed to have obtained insights into "the entire network of sources of the BND's Kosovo office," are at least as serious. The interpreter allegedly had connections to organized crime, as well as having been involved with the Albanian and Macedonian intelligence agencies. A charge that Afrim submitted improper expense claims to the value of €14,700 for alleged loss of income, seems less serious. The prosecution has not even claimed that Afrim passed on the classified material to their parties.

When contacted by SPIEGEL, the BND refused to comment on the case.

The attorneys representing Anton K. and Murat A. say that the charges are "absurd." A., in his capacity as K.'s interpreter, was already present during the supposedly incriminating conversations with informants, they point out. Besides, the attorneys argue, the document from the partner agency was turned over openly and contained no classified information. And according to A.'s attorney, Christian Stünkel, his client's supposed contact with organized crime was part of an assignment K. had given him. Murat A. was apparently asked to gather information about a local crime boss in the city of Tetovo.

Stünkel also says that his client had believed that he was working for the German Foreign Ministry, at least until he was arrested, and that his alleged activities for local intelligence agencies are "nothing but the BND's assertions."

"The core of the affair is so ridiculous," says K.'s attorney Sascha Jung, "that it's a complete mystery to us as to why the BND would knowingly risk the damage potentially resulting from its actions."

• Back
• 1
• | 2

• Part 1: Trial of Gay Spy Threatens to Embarrass German Intelligence
• Part 2: Victims of Homophobia?