Former German spy jailed for sharing state secrets with gay lover
German Justice Minister Katarina Barley arrives for the weekly government cabinet meeting on March 13, 2019 in Berlin, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty)
In Munich today, a former German spy was sentenced to two years and three months in prison for sharing top-secret information with his boyfriend, a Macedonian interpreter who he met while on a clandestine mission to Kosovo for the German BND Intelligence Service in 2005.
The former spy, identfied as Robert Anton K (43), was posted to Pristina in 2005 to set up a covert network of informants on behalf of the BND. Among them was a 29-year-old interpreter, identified only as Murat A, who passed BND security checks and later became K’s lover. Prosecutors said that after the two men moved in together in 2007, K offered his lover access to classified documents and state secrets. Der Speigel news magazine said that K divulged the secrets “in the bedroom” and by allowing his lover access to his computer.
The BND only learned of the relationship when K’s wife, who was still resident in Germany with their children, informed them that her husband had changed his life insurance policy, making A the sole beneficiary. The BNP informed prosecutors and the two men were recalled to Germany and arrested in March 2008.
The court today found K guilty of 21 charges of fraud and the sharing of state secrets. His Lover, A, received a suspended sentence of 14 months for “reconnoitring of state secrets”. Prosecutors also alleged that A had connections to Macedonian crime syndicates to whom he planned to sell the secrets, though no proof of this was presented at the trial.
The couple, who were also charged with claiming fraudulent expenses of 14,700 euros, claimed they were victims of a homophobic witch-hunt by the BND, who were embarrassed by the situation, not least because they cleared A for security and have had to break contacts with several Balkan informants because of the scandal.
