Germany ousts spy chief over far-right row
20 September, 2018
Germany’s government said on Tuesday it would replace the head of its domestic intelligence agency who has faced accusations of harboring far-right sympathies, putting an end to a row that exposed divisions in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.
Hans-Georg Maassen, who had questioned the authenticity of video footage showing far-right radicals hounding migrants in the eastern German city of Chemnitz, will become a senior official at the interior ministry once he leaves the BfV agency, the government said in a statement.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), junior coalition partners of Merkel’s conservative bloc, had wanted Maassen removed from the post he has held since 2012.
Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), had stood behind Maassen.
“Interior Minister Horst Seehofer values [Maassen’s] competence on questions of public security,” the government statement said. “Mr Maassen will not be in charge of supervising the BfV at the ministry.”
The deal allows each of the three parties to claim it got what it wanted. But opposition parties were quick to denounce the deal as a face-saving measure that effectively amounted to a promotion for Maassen.
Leftist lawmakers have accused Seehofer of undermining the credibility of the BfV agency by refusing to fire Maassen.
They also accuse Seehofer of being reluctant to act for fear of strengthening the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has also stood behind Maassen and is expected to steal conservative voters from the CSU in a regional election next month in Bavaria.
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