British police working on embassy spy case 'for months'

British police have been working on the case of the Berlin embassy security guard suspected of spying for Russia for “a number of months”, the head of Scotland Yard has said.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said her officers were continuing to work closely with the German authorities on the investigation.

“We have been involved for a number of months in the Met,” she told LBC radio.

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“I think it’s a very good example of international co-working. We will continue to work closely with them and through the next steps.”

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The 57-year-old man appeared in court in Germany on Wednesday following his arrest in a joint operation by the German and British authorities, including the security service MI5.

Officially he has been identified only as David S – in line with Germany’s strict privacy laws – although he has been named in British media reports as David Smith.

He is being held under German counter-espionage laws on suspicion of “intelligence agent activity”.

Prosecutors said he was suspected of working for Russian intelligence since at least November last year, handing over documents in return for cash on at least one occasion.

There has been no suggestion so far the British authorities will seek to extradite him to stand trial in the UK.

Dame Cressida said that if charges were brought, the Met stands ready to support any criminal proceedings, “wherever that may be”.

She said: “At the moment the Germans are most certainly handling it.”

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The case has led to calls from MPs for a review of the security arrangements for contractors working at UK embassies, amid fears that sensitive counter-terrorism operations may have been compromised.

The former national security adviser Lord Ricketts said the suspect was unlikely to have had access to highly-classified information.

However, he said the case served as a reminder the Russians continued to deploy traditional espionage methods to prise secrets from their rivals.

“We all think now about the Russians stealing secrets by hacking and providing disinformation by social media and so on – it is a reminder that the Russians haven’t given up also on the old-fashioned ways of suborning individuals through money,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

He added: “I think the Russian intelligence threat to all our countries has grown again.”