German federal prosecutors were granted access to search the office of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) MEP Maximilian Krah on Tuesday. This comes two weeks after the dramatic arrest of a Chinese-born parliamentary assistant to the Dresden-based representative, on charges of espionage.
The besieged populist party went into a temporary tailspin in April when 43-year-old Chinese national Jian Guo, a naturalized German citizen, was arrested by authorities in Dresden, amidst claims that he supplied Chinese intelligence services with confidential information garnered from within the European Parliament.
Guo’s arrest comes amid a wider crackdown on alleged Chinese intelligence assets in Germany, with suspicions about the MEP’s administrator initially denied by Krah. They were first aired by The European Conservative last year, based on the testimony of AfD colleagues.
A statement from the Federal Prosecutor General’s office described the raid as “a measure of witnesses according to § 103 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.” Reacting on social media, Krah said he was unfazed by the raid, even saying that he was amazed that “they took so long to do so.”
Regardless, the fallout from the scandal has dented his standing within the AfD. He indicated he would keep a low profile during the party’s European election campaign, during which he is first on the electoral list and popular among the party grassroots due to his support for ‘remigration.’
According to the witness statements of Krah’s employees, the raid was delayed by two hours due to confusion over a search warrant and a new colleague sitting at Guo’s desk.
Given the codename ‘G’ by German intelligence services, it was also revealed that Guo had been in the employ of the Saxony office of the notoriously anti-AfD Office for the Protection of the Constitution, from where he is alleged to have surveilled anti-CCP groups while in Germany.
Despite capitalising on growing discontent within the country around migration and foreign policy, the AfD has endured intense harassment from the German security forces, with even senior intelligence chiefs dragged into a campaign against the nationalists.
