German police arrest 'NATO spy' known as Manfred K

GERMAN police have arrested a civilian employee of NATO on suspicion of espionage at the US air base at Ramstein.

The prosecutor's office in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe said the 60-year-old German national identified only as Manfred K. was believed to have stolen "state secrets" for unidentified "third parties".

"He is believed to have illegally acquired, as a NATO civilian employee, classified data belonging to his employer at the US armed forces' air base at Ramstein and to have copied it onto his personal computer," it said in a statement.

"It is suspected that this was done with the intention of passing the obtained data on to unauthorised third parties."

A judge ordered the suspect remanded in pre-trial detention yesterday and the criminal investigations office in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate will supervise the ongoing probe, it added.

The prosecutor's office declined to provide further details on who may have sought the data or how sensitive the files were.

-  AFP