Law enforcement on Tuesday morning conducted searches in the Brussels offices of Maximilian Krah, the far-right MEP whose assistant has been arrested for allegedly spying for China.
“The European Parliament has given its consent to enter the premises,” Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s office said in a short statement, confirming the raid.The search is being carried out “on the basis of orders issued by the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice and a European Investigation Order,” the statement adds.The operation involved the offices of both Krah and his accredited assistant, Jian Guo, who last month was arrested by German authorities after being accused of serving as “an employee of the Chinese secret service” as well as “repeatedly passing on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence client.”The allegations were quickly dubbed Chinagate and prompted political outrage.It was not immediately clear if Tuesday’s raid was being led by Belgian or German police.Maximilian Krah is a prominent member of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) who, since 2019, has sat with the far-right Identify and Democracy (ID) group in the hemicycle.After the accusations against his assistant became public, he declared he learned about the arrest “from the press” and did not have any “additional information” to share.His office confirmed Guo had been suspended from his position.Our journalists are working on this story and will update it as soon as more information becomes available.
Source: euronews.com