German on trial accused of giving CIA 200 secret documents
A former employee of Germany's BND foreign intelligence agency who is charged with treason gave the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 200 secret documents, prosecutors said at the start of his trial on Monday.
The arrest last year of the man, identified as Markus R., cooled relations between Berlin and Washington, close allies during the Cold War and afterwards, and followed revelations that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) snooped on Germany.
The 32-year-old man, who has suffered from a disability since early childhood that affects his mobility, is accused of passing information to the CIA from 2008 until mid-2014 in return for at least 95,000 euros ($102,000).
He received the money from a handler named as Craig during meetings in Salzburg and other Austrian cities, prosecutors said. "At the BND I had the impression that nobody found me credible," the defendant told the Munich court. "With the CIA it was different. One could prove himself."
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/16/us-germany-spying-trial-idUSKCN0T51QP20151116#9g8fd6FJ1iRvGGbT.99
If he had the foresight to call himself a "whistleblower", he'd be a hero...