BERLIN, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Germany will overhaul its BND intelligence service after a series of scandals.
"The service will undergo a thorough reform process," BND spokesman Stefan Borchert said over the weekend, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported.
Founded in 1956, the BND has in the past years come under heavy fire for dubious interrogations in secret prisons in Afghanistan and Syria, and in the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It also surfaced that the BND spied on journalists in Germany.
"The German government has recognized that it has to keep the BND on a shorter leash," Free Democrat lawmaker Max Stadler told ARD television over the weekend. "That’s why we also need better control by the Parliament."
Borchert denied that the scandals were responsible for the reform, adding that the BND merely intended to become a better "service provider" for Germany.
The reform by 2009 will introduce new hierarchy structures and a complete organizational overhaul that includes a new "proliferation" department dealing with illegal weapons trading. It will also include the move from Pullach in Bavaria to Berlin, to be completed by 2012. With 6,000 employees, the BND is the largest of three federal intelligence services in Germany.
