Prosecutors say Manfred D sold BND papers to Hanning from 2010

Federal prosecutors in Germany have taken Manfred D, 64, into pre-trial detention on a charge of aiding and abetting treason. He was head of cabinet to August Hanning, who led the Bundesnachrichtendienst from 1998 to 2005 and was himself arrested on Tuesday. Senior public prosecutor Ines Peterson said the two men presumably agreed in spring 2010 that D would keep obtaining valuable intelligence from the BND for Hanning, in return for payment. The arrangement, on the prosecutors' account, ran for years after Hanning had left the service.

Euronews reported the arrest on Wednesday, after Hanning's detention the day before. Prosecutors accuse both men of using state secrets over many years to support private consulting and foreign interests, which they say amounts to treason. D is charged with aiding and abetting and is in custody. Hanning is being brought before an investigating judge. Peterson's sentence about spring 2010 is the earliest date the office has put on the agreement.

What the 2010 date does to the case

Hanning left the BND in 2005. A deal in 2010 is five years after he had no formal right to the service's paper. That timing is why D is the necessary second defendant. Someone still inside, or still able to draw papers out, had to collect what a former chief could no longer ask for in his own name. Head of cabinet is the post that sees the chief's correspondence. D had held that post. The charge says he kept a channel open after both the job and the chief's tenure had ended, and that he was paid.

The earlier public account of the Hanning warrant, from the Karlsruhe court this week, said he had received about 2,000 documents from a former chief of staff, named as Manfred D, through June 2022. Peterson's 2010 date pushes the start of that flow twelve years before the last delivery. If the documents run from 2010 to 2022, the case covers chancellors Merkel and Scholz and a stretch of foreign operations the service will not want itemised in open court. Prosecutors have not published the titles.

Consulting, and the foreign-interests line

The accusation is not only that papers left the building. It is that they were used for private consulting and for foreign interests. Hanning worked as a consultant after the BND. A consultant with a live feed of service reporting can sell judgment that looks like analysis and is in fact current intelligence. Peterson's wording puts payment inside the original agreement, which matters for the treason threshold German law applies when secrets are passed for advantage. A lawyer for Hanning has said, in the account of Tuesday's arrest, that he had documents and did not sell them. The payment clause in Peterson's statement is the prosecution's answer to that line. It is an allegation, not a finding.

Where the file stands

D is in pre-trial detention. Hanning is before an investigating judge. Neither man has been tried. The dates that can be printed are spring 2010 for the alleged agreement, June 2022 for the last delivery in the earlier account, and this week for the two arrests. The 2,000 documents remain the volume attached to the warrant. What those documents were about, and which foreign interest they are said to have served, has not been put in the public charge sheet.