THIS is with reference to the report “Ex-German spy chief held over ‘scandal of the century’” (Oct 7). August Hanning was arrested in Germany on suspicion of espionage and attempted treason.

Prosecutors have alleged that the former president of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) agreed with his former office manager, Manfred D., to receive confidential documents in return for payment. They further allege that he used the documents in private consultancy work, including an analysis prepared for a foreign intelligence service. On his part, Hanning says he is being wrongfully persecuted. His lawyer has conceded that he held confidential files, but denies that he passed them on, whether to Germany’s detriment or for money. The distinction is critical. Retaining files after leaving office is a breach of discipline and possibly of the law. Selling them is an offence of a different order.

German media has reported possible contact with an Azerbaijani intelligence officer, which Baku denies, as well as meetings with a retired Chinese military figure. Meeting a foreign counterpart is not espionage, and no public evidence shows that any foreign state received the documents. Yet, retired officials routinely maintain such contacts, and hostile services know it. The pattern deserves scrutiny, not conclusions.

Insider cases do persist because small anomalies go unchallenged, and each unchallenged anomaly makes the next one easier. Investigators have yet to establish who requested or received the material, whether anyone paid, what damage resulted, or whether any transfer amounted to deliberate espionage. The stakes are inter- national in dimension and scale. Allies share intelligence on terrorism, espionage and organised crime, and they would want to know whether their material was exposed. Even without proof of leakage, doubt alone can lead partners to share less. Trust, once questioned, is slow to rebuild.

History offers little precedent. Roger Hollis, MI5’s director-general until 1965, was suspected of being a Soviet mole, but inquiries found no proof. Stalin-era spy chiefs were convicted of serving foreign powers in trials now regarded as fabricated. No proven case exists of a service chief selling documents to a foreign state. If the allegations hold, the Hanning affair would be exceptional.

The problem, however, is not uniquely German. Pakistan has often wondered what a retired intelligence chief may say, write and sell. The clearest example is The Spy Chronicles (2018), a book of conversations between Lt-Gen Asad Durrani, a former head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and A.S. Dulat, a former head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The authors say they discussed opinions, not secrets.

But they overlooked a basic discipline: a former chief carries institutional memory, and a joint book with a rival service is read as more than private reflection. The army’s inquiry found a breach of its code of conduct, and a penalty was imposed. The principle is sound. For any intelligence professional, and, above all, a service chief, retirement cannot end the duty of confidentiality.

The two cases differ. Yet, between a memoir and an alleged sale lies a spectrum of conduct that no service can police by improvisation. All written rules should require pre-publication review, set terms for post-service consulting, and define monitoring before temptation arrives, not long after a critical breach emerges.

Lt-Col (retd) Syed Raziuddin
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2026