Espionage case: Schuster rejects speculation by the AfD

Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) has rejected speculation about the involvement of Saxony's Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the alleged espionage case involving AfD European politician Maximilian Krah. "The highly speculative public allegations made by the AfD against the authorities of the Free State of Saxony are completely unfounded," he said in the state parliament on Friday. "There is no connection between the Saxon State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and a member of the European Parliament." The Saxon authorities had acted accurately.

An employee of Krah's with Chinese roots is suspected of spying for China. He is said to have worked for Krah since 2019. He was arrested in Dresden on April 22. He is now in custody and Krah has separated from him. It later became known that the suspect was also in contact with the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution - albeit before his time as an employee of Krah. The Saxon AfD leader Jörg Urban nevertheless expressed the suspicion that the man may have been deliberately targeted by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in order to harm the party. Schuster now vehemently denied this.