NATO spy arrested by German police

KARLSRUHE

View at the entrance of NATO headquarters in Brussels is seen in this photo. German police arrest a civilian employee of NATO on suspicion of espionage. AP photo

German police have arrested a civilian employee of NATO on suspicion of espionage at the U.S. air base at Ramstein, federal prosecutors said yesterday.

The prosecutor’s office in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe said the 60-year-old German national identified only as Manfred K. was believed to have stolen “state secrets” for unidentified “third parties.”

“He is believed to have illegally acquired, as a NATO civilian employee, classified data belonging to his employer at the U.S. armed forces’ air base at Ramstein and to have copied it onto his personal computer,” it said in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse. “It is suspected that this was done with the intention of passing the obtained data on to unauthorised third parties.”

A judge ordered the suspect remanded in pre-trial detention on Aug. 6 and the state criminal investigations office in Rhineland-Palatinate will supervise the ongoing probe, it added. The prosecutor’s office declined to provide further details on who may have sought the data or how sensitive the files were.