GERMANY: Top spy forced out in migrant row
Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, has been told to quit and move to a senior post at the interior ministry. The government’s decision came amid a furore over Mr Maassen’s response to recent far-right unrest in Chemnitz. Anti-migrant “hunts” were reported there on 26 August after a German man was killed in a brawl […]
GERMANY Top spy forced out in migrant row
Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, has been told to quit and move to a senior post at the interior ministry.
The government’s decision came amid a furore over Mr Maassen’s response to recent far-right unrest in Chemnitz.
Anti-migrant “hunts” were reported there on 26 August after a German man was killed in a brawl with migrants.
Mr Maassen doubted that foreign-looking people had been hounded. Chancellor Angela Merkel was urged to sack him.
Mr Maassen will leave the BfV spy service and become a state secretary in the interior ministry. His move was a compromise between Mrs Merkel and her coalition partners – Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, of the right-wing Bavarian CSU, and centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) leader Andrea Nahles.