Germany: Top U.S. spy must leave country

BERLIN – Germany on Thursday demanded Washington’s top spy in Berlin leave the country as a new round of allegations of U.S. espionage worsened the friction between the two allies.

The immediate trigger was the emergence of two new cases of alleged American spying. They inflamed a furor that erupted last year when it was learned that the U.S. was intercepting Internet traffic in Germany and eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone calls.

More broadly, the move to kick out the CIA station chief appears to reflect a Germany out of patience with what it sees as a pattern of American disrespect and interference.

U.S. officials described Germany’s action as extraordinary.

While agents have been expelled from time to time, usually by unfriendly powers, a former U.S. official said he couldn’t remember an instance since the end of the Cold War in which the ranking intelligence official was asked to leave a country.

Germany refused to identify the CIA station chief by name. In the United States, it is illegal to disclose the name of an undercover operative.

Shortly before Thursday’s announcement, Merkel told reporters that Germany and the United States had “very different approaches” to the role of intelligence agencies, and she insisted that any spying on allies is “a waste of energy.”

The reports last year that the National Security Agency had targeted Merkel and Internet traffic have triggered a German criminal investigation and a parliamentary probe.

On Wednesday, German police raided properties in the Berlin area in what a German government spokesman said was a case involving “a very serious suspicion” of espionage.

German media reported that the man being investigated worked at Germany’s Defense Ministry in a department dealing with international security policy, and he had aroused suspicion because of his close contacts to alleged U.S. spies.

Last week, a 31-year-old German intelligence employee was arrested on suspicion of spying for foreign powers since 2012. German media have reported that he spied for the CIA.