Turkish spies have allegedly infiltrated Germany's immigration office

Germany’s domestic intelligence agencies are investigating claims that Turkish spies infiltrated Germany immigration authorities, according to reports.

A number of Turkish asylum seekers claim they were the subjects of critical media articles in their homeland shortly after meeting with officials from Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, according to an investigation by German public broadcaster ARD and newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

The asylum seekers, fleeing an authoritarian crackdown in Turkey, allege that interpreters, interviewers and security staff working for the German immigration authorities passed their personal data to Turkish media outlets aligned with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which then smeared them as terrorists.

They say the reports contained information that not even their family in Turkey knew about, such as their location in Germany, and could only have come from their interviews with immigration officials.

Der Spiegel reported that German domestic intelligence was investigating at least two of the claims. German immigration officials said that 15 freelance interpreters had been dismissed this year for a lack of neutrality, but that these cases didn’t match the circumstances described in the media reports.

Cem Özdemir, the leader of Germany’s Green party, has called for better screening of interpreters in response to the allegations.

Germany is home to about 3 million people of Turkish descent – the largest such community outside Turkey’s borders – an estimated 1.2 million of whom are eligible to vote in Turkish elections. The community has grown recently with new asylum seekers fleeing Erdogan’s authoritarian crackdown in the wake of last year’s failed coup attempt.

The Berliner Morgenpost newspaper reported earlier this month that the new arrivals include 600 former senior Turkish officials fleeing the purge, which has targeted individuals suspected of links to the opposition Gülen movement. Erdogan alleges that the movement’s leader Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric who lives in exile in the United States, orchestrated the failed coup in July 2016.