 A 60-year-old German civilian who worked at Nato's air command headquarters in Germany has been charged with stealing secret data, federal prosecutors have said.
The suspect, identified only as Manfred K in accordance with German privacy rules, was arrested on Monday on charges of obtaining state secrets with the intent to provide them to an unidentified third party, revealed prosecutors' spokesman Markus Koehler in a written statement. The Nato employee is alleged to have obtained the data and then transferred it to his private computer.
The statement did not say when the data was allegedly stolen, for whom it was intended, nor whether any of it was passed along. Koehler would not comment further citing the ongoing investigation.
Nato has about 500 people working at its headquarters at the US military's Ramstein airbase, about 10 to 20% of whom are civilians. It co-ordinates the alliance's air operations, and is also the HQ for Nato's new European-based missile defence system currently under development. Though located near Ramstein in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate its operations are separate from the US Air Force Europe, which is also based there.
Nato's press office in Brussels also refused to comment on the arrestbecause of the ongoing investigation.
Source: guardian.co.uk
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