What prosecutors allege

The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement that Hanning is strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, obtaining state secrets, attempted treason and espionage. Prosecutors accuse him of paying for secret intelligence documents and using them to prepare an analysis for a foreign intelligence service, in a case that ranks among Germany's biggest intelligence scandals since the Cold War. Hanning served a seven-year tenure as head of the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service, which ended in 2005.

• •According to prosecutors, five years after his BND tenure ended, Hanning agreed with a former BND office manager to receive confidential intelligence information in exchange for payment.
• •Prosecutors say Hanning used classified information supplied by the former office manager to prepare an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service.
• •They say Hanning for years shared political information with a representative of the foreign spy agency.
• •Prosecutors did not identify the foreign intelligence service, and it was not immediately clear whether the analysis reached its intended recipient.

Second arrest inside the BND

A second man was arrested on Tuesday as well. The office manager, identified as Manfred D. in line with privacy rules, was also detained. He served as office manager to successive BND presidents until March 2026, a role prosecutors say potentially gave him access to some of Germany's most current intelligence at the time documents were allegedly being siphoned from the service.

• •Prosecutors say Manfred D. is suspected of having supplied around 2,000 documents over the years.
• •The alleged material included classified documents intended solely for internal use within the BND and senior-level intelligence briefings at the chancellery.
• •According to Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the papers spanned the Russian military, the Iranian nuclear programme and material so sensitive that allied agencies in other countries had classified it secret.
• •According to information obtained by Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the case does not involve Russia.

Court date and the Azerbaijan lead

Both Hanning and Manfred D. were due to appear before a judge at the Federal Court of Justice. The Spiegel news magazine reported late on Tuesday that investigators were pursuing a possible connection to Azerbaijan and that Hanning had been in contact with an agent from that country. The federal prosecutor's office declined to comment on the Spiegel report. Hanning did not respond to a request for comment, and the chancellery declined to comment.

Reaction and Germany's spy-scandal history

A senior security lawmaker called the arrest of a former BND chief unprecedented, saying it could harm the country's intelligence relationships with allied nations. Roderich Kiesewetter, a conservative security expert, told the Handelsblatt newspaper on Tuesday the affair could put a strain on Germany's standing with its intelligence allies. Such espionage cases, he said, were "particularly burdensome for trust and particularly damaging for Germany".

Germany has seen comparable episodes before:

• •In 1974, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt resigned under pressure after an East German spy turned up in his inner circle, having spent nearly two years at his side as a close aide.
• •In 1990, senior West German counter-intelligence official Klaus Kuron was exposed as a Stasi spy and later convicted of treason.
• •Hans-Georg Maassen, who once ran the domestic intelligence service, said in 2024 that it was surveilling him over alleged right-wing political extremism, a claim he rejected.

Within the agency itself, BND President Martin Jaeger said the agency had launched extensive internal investigations as soon as suspicions emerged.