Maximilian Krah: Employees arrested – AfD politician stunned | EUROtoday

DPolice arrested a person in Dresden on Monday on suspicion of spying for China. The accused Jian G. has been working for a German member of the European Parliament since 2019. According to data from safety circles, that is the AfD's high candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, because the ARD capital studio and “Zeit” additionally reported. A Jian G. is listed as an accredited assistant on Krah's EU Parliament web site.

According to the Federal Prosecutor General's Office, the German citizen G. spied on the Chinese opposition motion and likewise handed on data from the European Parliament to China. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, he’s accused of performing as an agent for a overseas secret service in a very critical case. His condominium was additionally searched on Monday.

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Maximilian Krah bei Tilo Jung

According to “Zeit”, the accused is a 43-year-old native of China who, after learning in Germany, initially continued to work as a businessman there, the place he’s mentioned to have met Krah. According to data from WELT, the safety authorities had been keeping track of Krah's atmosphere for a very long time due to connections to China.

Krah expressed shock on the worker's arrest, which he discovered about from the press that morning. “I don’t have any further information,” shared Bang on X with. The allegation of spying for an additional nation is “a serious allegation,” he mentioned, including: “If the allegations are proven to be true, this would result in immediate termination of employment.”

G. provided himself as an informant to German authorities round ten years in the past, reported ARD. At the time, nonetheless, he was labeled as unreliable. There was suspicion that he was a doable double agent for China.

According to “Spiegel”, G. is claimed to have handed on particular particulars concerning the dialogue course of on “security and defense policy effects of China's influence on the critical infrastructure in the European Union” in addition to data on a movement for a decision “on the ongoing persecution of the Falun Gong movement in China “.

G. is scheduled to be brought before the investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe on Tuesday, who will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant and carry out pre-trial detention.

Faeser: “Attack from within on European democracy”

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) spoke of “extremely serious allegations”. “If it is confirmed that the European Parliament was spying for Chinese intelligence services, then it would be an attack from within on European democracy. (…) Anyone who employs such an employee also bears responsibility for it,” emphasized the minister. The case must be “clarified in detail” and all connections and backgrounds must be illuminated.

An AfD spokesman called the reports of the arrest “very disturbing.” “As we currently have no further information about the case, we have to wait for further investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General,” the spokesman said. The party will do everything it can to support the clarification.

The “Bild” quoted an unnamed AfD federal executive board member as saying that Krah is now becoming a problem for the party. Krah's AfD colleague in the EU Parliament, Sylvia Limmer, wrote on She accused party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla of insisting on Krah and having a decisive influence on the EU candidate list. Krah is the AfD's top candidate for the upcoming European elections.

The first parliamentary managing director of the AfD parliamentary group, Bernd Baumann, said about the arrest on Tuesday to journalists in Berlin: “We'll see what sort of proof there may be now, after which we'll see what occurs.” When it comes to allegations, it's during election campaign times now hard boiled. “We are not scared for now and our voters, large parts of them in any case, are no longer scared either,” he added.

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The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the EU Parliament, David McAllister (CDU), spoke on RBB Inforadio of an “outrageous, very serious incident. Here one of the closest employees of the AfD's top candidate is arrested because he spied on opposition figures and dissidents in Germany for the Chinese services. He called on the AfD to draw conclusions.

The chairman of the Bundestag's parliamentary control committee, Konstantin von Notz (Greens), viewed the arrest as further evidence of the AfD's authoritarian leanings. “The AfD is a party of dictatorships,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND). “She makes no secret of her contempt for our democracy and our constitutional state. And that obviously makes their politicians very vulnerable to influence and control from China and Russia.” This is not about individual cases. “All of this has structure and affects the entire party.” Von Notz is referring, among other things, to allegations against the AfD politician Petr Bystron.

China speaks of defamation – further arrests in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia

Beijing vehemently rejected the espionage allegations. The allegations were intended to “slander and suppress China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday. It is about “destroying the atmosphere of cooperation between China and Europe”.

A man and a couple were arrested in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia on Monday. The Federal Prosecutor's Office accuses one of the accused of having obtained information on technologies that could be used for military purposes on behalf of China. He is said to have made use of the spouses for this purpose. According to the ARD report, the cases are not related.