Indian police claim arrest of German ‘spy’ in Punjab

Bhakra dam

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A senior police official in the Indian district of Ropar has said that a German national arrested there last week was on a “spying mission” on behalf of the German government. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, senior superintendent of police L.K. Yadav claimed that Thomas Kuehn, of Hamburg, Germany, had confessed to being a “German spy”. The 45-year-old Kuehn was reportedly arrested last Friday in a Hindu temple near the Bhakra dam in Punjab. Police officials grew suspicious when the German national failed to present them with “passport, visa or other required documents”. He initially claimed that he had lost his travel documentation, but later said his passport had been taken by his “Russian girlfriend” who was “in Nepal”. Shortly afterwards, Indian police officials reportedly discovered that Kuenh spent 18 months in a German prison in the late 1980s, for spying on behalf of Czechoslovakia. They also found out that Kuenh has traveled extensively to Europe, America and Africa during the past decade, and that he first visited India in 2004, touring Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir. He apparently returned to India in 2007, and appears to have remained there ever since. Superintendent Yadav said that police officers have been dispatched to the Indian regions of Goa, Dharamshala, and across the India-Nepal border, to collect further information on Kuehn’s visits to these places during the past two years.