The former director of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service, who has been charged with espionage, had close ties to a former high-ranking Chinese general, according to Der Spiegel magazine.
August Hanning, BND director from 1998 to 2005, was arrested Oct. 6 and charged with “treasonous espionage” for an unidentified foreign spy service in one of the most stunning spy cases since the Cold War.
As head of the Federal Intelligence Service, the English name for BND, Mr. Hanning would have had access to extremely valuable secrets, including those shared among NATO allies, meaning the case could prove to be a potentially grave compromise of Western security.
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Mr. Hanning traveled several times to China, where he knew a former official who had served in China’s Embassy in formerly communist East Germany.
The case involves some 2,000 internal documents provided by his former chief of staff, Manfred Dankesreiter, 64, from 2010 to 2012.
Some of the documents were used to produce an analysis for a foreign intelligence officer, reportedly from Azerbaijan.
Additional charges from the German public prosecutor’s office said Mr. Hanning also had “close contact” with someone working for another foreign intelligence service who was provided confidential political information based on BND files for several years.
Spiegel identified the former People’s Liberation Army general as Gen. Wang Jianzheng, an expert in German affairs who had translated a number of books from German to Chinese.
Gen. Wang is now with the state-run China Institute for International Strategic Studies, a PLA think tank, and told the magazine he had not seen Mr. Hanning in a long time and declined further comment.
Mr. Hanning has stated he is being “wrongfully persecuted.” His lawyer told Der Spiegel he possessed confidential BND files but denied passing them to the detriment of Germany or for money.
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