Must have been spying

Russian? Court expatriates ex-employee of the AfD

(Bild: AFP)

An ex-employee of an AfD member of the Bundestag is to be expatriated: Evidence suggests that he acted on behalf of Russia to the detriment of Germany. Due to the increasing number of cases, Berlin is now considering consulting the Office for the Protection of the Constitution on a regular basis.

An ex-employee of an AfD member of the Bundestag is fighting his expatriation without success. The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court has declared the revocation of his naturalization to be legal in summary proceedings. Like the Berlin Administrative Court, it confirmed the action taken by the Senate's internal administration. The ex-AfD employee had obtained his naturalization by fraudulent misrepresentation, it said in justification. (Ref.: OVG 5 S 27/24)

The man had concealed his Russian passport during the naturalization procedure. This alone justified the immediate revocation of his naturalization, it said. In addition, based on information available to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, it was highly probable that he was acting on behalf of Russian state agencies to the detriment of the Federal Republic of Germany.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com, AFP, krone.at-Grafik)

According to the judges, the public interest outweighed the man's personal interests in this case. The current decision is incontestable and immediately enforceable.

The ex-AfD employee had tried in vain to prevent the naturalization from being revoked immediately through the summary proceedings. However, he is still defending himself against this with a lawsuit before the Berlin Administrative Court. It remains to be seen when a decision will be made in the proceedings.

Stricter security precautionsare needed
 Until the beginning of the year, the man was an employee of AfD member of parliament Eugen Schmidt and held a parliamentary house pass for a long time. According to the court, he had declared to a Berlin district office in September 2019 that he only had Ukrainian citizenship. He became German in November 2022. However, in April 2023, federal police officers at Hamburg Airport discovered a Russian passport and a large amount of cash on his person. As a result, the Senate of the Interior revoked his naturalization.

Incidents like this gave rise to stricter security precautions in the Bundestag. For example, consideration is now being given to whether the Office for the Protection of the Constitution should be regularly consulted for information before issuing a house ID card to employees. A decision on the new measures is expected to be made this fall.