BERLIN (Reuters) – A member of staff at the German government press office suspected of working for Egyptian intelligence did not have extensive access to information, the government said on Friday.
The case was mentioned in the BfV domestic intelligence agency’s 385-page annual report, published on Thursday.
A government spokeswoman denied at a daily news conference that the person in question had had access to sensitive information, but declined to give further details.
The press office is headed by Steffen Seibert, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief spokesman, and is located about a kilometre (half a mile) from the Chancellery.
The BfV report said that unspecified measures had been taken against the member of staff in December, on orders from federal prosecutors.
The Egyptian embassy in Berlin was not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Alexander Ratz and Andreas Rinke; Writing by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
