Germany Arrests Former Spy Chief

KARLSRUHE, Germany — Germany's federal prosecutors on 6 October had police arrest August Hanning, the former head of the country's foreign intelligence service, on suspicion of treason and spying for foreign powers.

His former chief of staff, identified only as Manfred D. under German privacy rules, was also arrested. Prosecutors accuse him of passing Hanning about 2,000 documents from inside the intelligence service, many of them classified, in exchange for money, over a period of years.

The arrests were made by officers of the Federal Criminal Police Office on warrants from an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest court for criminal cases, the Federal Prosecutor's Office said. Premises linked to both men were searched, including in Berlin. Neither man has been formally charged, and suspicion is not proof of guilt.

Who Hanning is

Hanning, 80, was president of the Federal Intelligence Service, known by its German initials BND, from December 1998 until the end of November 2005. The BND is Germany's agency for spying abroad, comparable to the American CIA. He then served as a state secretary, one of the most senior civil-service posts, at the Federal Interior Ministry until 2009. Since then he has worked as a private consultant.

What prosecutors allege

According to the prosecutors' statement, Manfred D. was Hanning's chief of staff at the BND and then his assistant at the Interior Ministry. From March 2012 until March 2026 he was again chief of staff at the BND, this time for Hanning's successors, a post that gave him access to confidential information.

In spring 2010, prosecutors say, the two men agreed that Manfred D. would keep sending Hanning valuable intelligence from the BND in return for payment, and that Hanning would use it in his consulting business. Many of the documents were meant only for the BND's internal use, prosecutors said, in particular for regular briefings in which senior officials from federal ministries and security agencies meet at the Chancellery, the office of Germany's head of government.

Prosecutors also say that on one occasion Hanning used classified material to write an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service; they have not yet established whether it reached that officer. And for several years, they say, Hanning was in close contact with a representative of a second foreign intelligence service and passed on political information, partly based on the leaked material.

Prosecutors did not name either foreign country. The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that investigators were looking at a possible link to Azerbaijan, according to Al Jazeera; the prosecutors' office declined to comment on that report.

Hanning is suspected of treasonous espionage, spying out state secrets, attempted treason and acting as an agent of a foreign intelligence service. Treason here means passing on state secrets in a way that endangers the country's security. Manfred D. is suspected of aiding and abetting.

How it came to light

The case began, prosecutors said, after prosecutors in Hamburg searched Hanning's premises in September 2025 during a separate investigation involving Christina Block, an heiress to a German steakhouse chain. The BBC reported that Block is accused of arranging the kidnapping of two of her children in 2023 during a custody fight, and that investigators allege Hanning was involved in an earlier attempt, which he denies. According to the BBC, police reportedly found a data storage device holding recent BND documents. The Federal Prosecutor's Office took over the espionage investigation in May 2026, working with the BND and federal police.

Reaction

Marc Henrichmann, who chairs the German parliament's committee that oversees the intelligence services, told the AFP news agency that Germany "will not tolerate the betrayal of secrets," Al Jazeera reported.

It is not the BND's first such case. In 2023 a senior BND officer, identified as Carsten L., was charged with treason for allegedly passing secrets to Russia; his trial is still going on, the BBC reported.

What happens next

Under German law, suspects arrested on a warrant are brought before a judge, who tells them what they are accused of and decides whether they must stay in custody until any trial. Prosecutors said both men would appear before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice. If the case goes forward, prosecutors would later file formal charges, and a court would decide whether to put them on trial.