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17.03.2016
EuroNews

A German would-be triple agent who claims not enough trust was placed in him has been sentenced to eight years in prison for spying and treason.

Markus Reichel was working for Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND, in Munich when he started spying for the US.

He was jailed for handing over more than 200 secret German documents to the CIA and for attempting to pass three to Russian intelligence services.

Reichel told the Munich court that he felt under-appreciated at the BND, where he worked in the post room for 
six and a half years until his arrest in July 2014.

At the CIA, he said, things were different.

He was discovered in May 2014, when he sent an email to the Russian consulate in Munich, in which he offered his services and attached three classified documents to prove credibility. It was intercepted and his activities became public two months later.

At the time, US-German relations were already strained. Not long before, former CIA agent Edward Snowden revealed the US had been carrying out extensive surveillance operations in Germany, which included tapping the phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel.