The office of German MEP Maximilian Krah, who is implicated in espionage and corruption, has accessed a variety of documents from the European Parliament’s trade committee through an internal online system.
Maximilian Krah, the leading candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in June’s European Parliament elections, is under investigation over allegations that he received payments from Russia and China for his work as an MEP.
In recent years, the office of AfD politician appears to have repeatedly obtained secret documents on EU foreign trade from the European Parliament’s trade committee. According to сommittee Сhair Bernd Lange in his commentary to POLITICO:
“Maximilian Krah has never received any EU Restricted documents. (…) It is really disappointing that we have no clear facts and names from the attorney or from the secret services.”
EU parliamentary committees categorise documents into three levels of confidentiality. The committee’s administration assessed that Krach’s office repeatedly requested documents that were classified as “confidential.” This would include, for example, analyses of partner states’ foreign trade strategies or documents on the course of trade negotiations.
The German prosecutor’s office in Dresden earlier this week opened a preliminary investigation into Krah over allegations of corruption involving Russia and China.
Prior to that, Federal prosecutors accuse Jian G. of passing internal European Parliament information to China. The intelligence services rejected his request because they considered him an unreliable candidate. Most recently, this activity included information about a proposed resolution against China’s persecution of minorities such as Uyghurs and Tibetans.
Maximilian Krah sacked Jian G. after all the allegations and said that an audit he launched showed that he did not have access to classified documents.
