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Germany's intelligence service investigates its former boss

2024-02-01 18:00:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Germany's intelligence service investigates its former boss

Hans-Georg Maassen

The former president of Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Hans-Georg Maassen, is being investigated by his former agency, German newspaper Bild reported on Wednesday.

Maassen, who was ousted after appearing to downplay far-right violence against migrants, is a member of former chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

Hans-Georg Maassen: A controversial career

Former German spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen is no stranger to controversy. Throughout his career he has been accused of impropriety and many suspect that he sympathizes with far-right ideology.

Hans-Georg Maassen, the former head of the Office for Constitutional Protection (BfV), the national intelligence service, has often been criticized for his statements and actions.

As part of the investigation, according to Bild newspaper, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) asked the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) for information about Maassen.

The former BfV chief said he was "outraged" and "would demand information about what data my former employees store about me".

Bild newspaper reported that a spokeswoman for the Federal Interior Ministry, responsible for both the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Criminal Police Office, did not deny that there had been an investigation into Maassen.

Germany's intelligence service investigates its former boss

"We don't comment on individual cases, if only for privacy reasons," she told the paper.

Maassen said that if he was investigated by the BfV, it would be political persecution.

"If this is true, then it is clear that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is no longer used to protect the Constitution, but instead is misused to protect the government and to fight and politically harass critics of the government," Maassen said in a statement in the X network, formerly known as Twitter.

Attempted expulsion from the CDU

Maassen was forced to leave his post as head of Germany's national intelligence service in 2018 after appearing to underestimate the seriousness of the far-right's apparent violence in the eastern city of Chemnitz.

He ran unsuccessfully as a CDU candidate in the 2021 parliamentary elections in Thuringia.

The CDU leadership has accused Maassen of using the language of conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites. Maassen, 60, has been criticized for several statements on social networks.

Party leaders tried to expel him for tweets about "eliminative racism against whites", but a party commission in Thuringia ruled last month that he could remain a member of the CDU./ DW