Former employee of AfD politician Krah | The spy in the MP's office

He has been in pretrial detention for 15 months, and the trial against Jian G. begins on August 5th at the Dresden Higher Regional Court. The proceedings are being conducted under considerable security precautions and are likely to attract international attention. G., a German citizen, worked for many years as an employee of AfD politician Maximilian Krah and must now answer for charges of exploiting this position to spy for China. The Federal Prosecutor's Office considers him "sufficiently suspected" of "intelligence agent activity" for a foreign service, even in a "particularly serious case."

In its indictment, the Karlsruhe authorities assume that G. had been working for the Chinese secret service since 2002. From 2019 until his arrest in Dresden in April 2024, he worked as an assistant to Krah , who was then a member of the European Parliament. He allegedly collected information on European Parliament deliberations and decisions for the Chinese service. Among other things, he gained access to more than 500 documents, some of which were classified as "particularly sensitive" by the European Parliament.

The alleged spy also obtained documents in the European Parliament that were classified as “particularly sensitive.”

In addition, G. is said to have also gathered information on leading AfD politicians. According to information from the news magazine "Spiegel," this involved assessments of the role, status, and position of top officials, including party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla . According to the investigation, some of the information came from confidential conversations G. had with Krah. In 2023 and 2024, he is also said to have spied on Chinese opposition figures and dissidents in Germany, appearing on social media as a critic of the Chinese leadership.

In addition to G., Chinese citizen Yaqi X. will also be in the dock in the proceedings, which are initially scheduled for 13 days until the end of September. Until her arrest in September 2024, she worked for a logistics service provider at Leipzig/Halle Airport and is alleged to have provided information about flights, cargo, and passengers to G. According to the indictment, this involved, in particular, the transport of military equipment and persons with connections to a German arms company.

Krah, who is now a member of the Bundestag, told the "Bild" newspaper after G.'s arrest that, to his knowledge, his employee had only "maintained contact with official Chinese authorities in the embassy." After the Chinese woman's arrest, he stated that she had only communicated with his former employee. The only reproach he made to himself was that he "didn't pay more attention." With a view to the upcoming trial, he told the dpa news agency that he hoped for clarity as to "whether I was deceived." The AfD had accused the authorities of failing to warn them. According to media reports, G. had also unsuccessfully approached the Federal Intelligence Service and later the Saxon Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but they did not consider him reliable.

While Krah portrays himself as the victim of deception , the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office had already initiated two preliminary investigations against the AfD politician in April 2024. The investigation was to examine whether initial suspicions of bribery of members of parliament were substantiated. The background to the investigation were alleged payments, in one case from pro-Russian sources, in the other from Chinese sources. The investigations were said to have been triggered by wiretapped telephone calls from Krah's previously arrested employee. In May of this year, the Saxon authority confirmed that it was conducting an investigation into allegations of bribery as a member of the European Parliament and money laundering in connection with Chinese payments. Krah confirmed that his immunity as a member of parliament should be lifted. However, he described the allegations as "absurd and politically motivated."

The events surrounding Krah are likely far from being isolated incidents. China is increasingly engaging in espionage in Germany, the Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) states in its recently published annual report. To achieve its strategic goals, the country is resorting to "cyber espionage measures, hybrid measures, and traditional espionage operations," it states. The Bundeswehr, not least of all, is in the spotlight.