12 face Bonn spy charges

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 8

12 face Bonn spy charges

NZPA-Reuter Bonnij The West German authori- ’ ties have arrested eleven per- " sons on suspicion of spying I for East Germany, after 1 launching a nationwide search, a reliable source has ! said in Hamburg, Agence J France-Presse reports. The prosecutor’s office in , Hamburg has also ordered the '. chairman of the West Ger-I‘ man Federation of Detective! J Inspectors, Detective Inspec-! (tor Rolf Grunert, aged 51. toi be held on charges of spying I ' for East Germany. He was!' arrested at his home on Sat-il urday. But the prosecutor’s office j 1 in Karlsruhe, responsible for'. 1 State security affairs, said, 1 that the new nationwide oper-H ation was not linked with his;' arrest. p Grunert, born at Arnstadt! in East Germany, was picked!] up after returning from a' West Berlin congress held by i his federation, to which 8500.’ of the country’s 18,000 police ■ inspectors belong. According, to informed sources, the 11 arrests were made possible by new coun-ter-espionage methods and co-operation between security and intelligence services involving systematic computer analysis of the lifestyles and movements of suspects. There have been estimates j of between 10,000 and 15.000 foreign agents in West Germany, most of them from < Eastern Europe, according to i officials. 1 Last year, the authorities j said they had arrested 51 ’ alleged (foreign agents. An I ’official source in Bonn called them the tip of the iceberg. ' In Berlin, a court has sent- < enced Heinrich Burger, a 1 former spokesman for the i Social Democratic Party in I West Berlin, to seven years in i prison for spying for East i Germany, and his former 1 wife. Kathrvn, to 18 months ' for complicity. I