Balkanalysis.com

3/21/2009: Germany Arrests Own Diplomat for Passing Secrets to Kosovo Criminal Groups

3/21/2009: Germany Arrests Own Diplomat for Passing Secrets to Kosovo Criminal Groups

(Balkanalysis.com Security & Intelligence Brief 29) According to the Associated Press, German police in Stuttgart recently arrested two men who allegedly provided sensitive government data to members of criminal groups and, possibly foreign intelligence services in Kosovo and Macedonia.

The espionage reportedly took place in 2007 and 2008, at which time the diplomat (identified as ‘Anton Robert K.’) apparently passed secret information to his translator, identified as “Murat A.,” a Macedonian national (though probably of ethnic Albanian background), a man with alleged ties to criminal groups.

“In the course of his work, the German man had access to ‘sensitive information’ that he passed along to Murat A. despite knowing that he had contacts with organized crime in both Kosovo and Macedonia, prosecutors said,” read the report. “Murat A. is alleged to have then fed the information to ‘people linked with organized crime, or foreign intelligence agencies,’ prosecutors said.”

The latest incident comes after a much-publicized affair late last year, in which two reported BND agents were detained by Kosovo Albanian police at a bombing site in Pristina, leading to a brief chill in relations between Kosovo’s Albanian leadership and its longtime supporters in Bonn.

The diplomatic arrest, however, indicates one of the problems that the EULEX, the law and order arm of the European Union mission in Kosovo, will continue to face with vetting low to mid-level local staff. Last year, as the mission was preparing to deploy itself in Kosovo, a top official expressed optimism for Balkanalysis.com that different hiring systems and safeguards would preclude previous infiltration efforts as had been all too common under its predecessor, UNMIK, which ruled Kosovo since the end of the NATO bombing in 1999.

One aspect which will change with this transformation of international control will be that fewer countries will now have a direct presence in Kosovo’s international administration. Despite and because of their increased stature there, local criminal interests tied with foreign intelligence services will concentrate with increased efforts on their employees- meaning the recent police action in Stuttgart is hardly likely to be the last of its kind.