A Pakistani man was arrested by German authorities on Tuesday for allegedly spying for Iran on the former head of a group that promotes German-Israeli relations.
According to media reports, federal prosecutors said Thursday that the 31-year-old, identified only as Syed Mustufa H in keeping with German privacy rules, was arrested on Tuesday in the northern city of Bremen.
They said in a statement that he was ‘in contact with an intelligence unit attributed to Iran’, without elaborating. He is alleged to have spied on the former head of the German-Israeli Society and people close to him, among others, and handed over information to Iran in October.
The ex-head of the German-Israeli group, former lawmaker Reinhold Robbe, told the Bild newspaper that he wasn’t surprised by the alleged espionage and he ‘will not be intimidated’.
Earlier this year, the US Justice Department closed its espionage investigation into a former American diplomat who had been accused of spying for Pakistan.
FBI agents had raided Robin L Raphel’s home and office in 2014, looking for evidence that she was spying for Islamabad, an accusation which Raphel had denied vehemently.
“It was clear from the outset that this investigation was based on a fundamental misunderstanding,” her lawyer, Amy Jeffress, said in a statement.
“It is of the utmost importance to our national security that our diplomats be able to do their work without fearing that their routine diplomatic communications will subject them to a criminal investigation,” she added, according to the New York Times.
No charges were filed against Raphel, Jeffress continued, sharply criticising government officials for revealing details of the investigation to reporters.
The espionage case against Raphel began after US officials intercepted a conversation in which a Pakistani official suggested that his government was receiving American secrets from her. The investigation did not turn out to be very successful and prosecutors were left with no choice but to focus on charges of keeping classified information in her home. Raphel consistently refused plea deals in negotiations with the government.
Raphel maintained close ties with Pakistani officials even during the rough patch in the Pak-US relationship when many other American diplomats decried Pakistan’s duplicity in the fight against terrorism. For decades, she has also been at the centre of steering American policy towards Pakistan.
Raphel was recruited by Richard C Holbrooke, the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, at the start of the Obama administration.
