The Directorate of State Security and Intelligence (DSN), Austria’s primary domestic intelligence body, has been struck by a scandal after an employee was accused of having passed secret information to a proscribed Islamist terror group, the Muslim Brotherhood.
The organization is officially designated as anti-constitutional in Austria, and one that the DSN itself is tasked with identifying, monitoring, and countering.
The man, who was temporarily assigned to the agency, reportedly maintained contact with members of the Muslim Brotherhood while working in a department responsible for counter-espionage and extremist threat assessment, Exxpress reported.
After weeks of surveillance, investigators confronted him following a meeting with Brotherhood representatives. He was immediately suspended and now faces prosecution for intelligence activities detrimental to the Republic of Austria.
DSN officials sought to reassure the public, claiming that “internal control mechanisms are functioning and were effective in this case,” but the department has come under fire as critics argue that the agency’s ability to uncover a mole only after confidential material had already been leaked demonstrates the exact opposite of control.
In a press release on Wednesday, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) accused Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, of the governing ÖVP, of gross negligence. “The fact that a radical Islamist is able to divert secret information from the heart of our intelligence service is the culmination of a chain of catastrophic failures under Interior Minister Gerhard Karner,” said FPÖ security spokesman Gernot Darmann, who called for the minister’s resignation.
He described the situation as “the height of cynicism and incompetence,” adding that “the ÖVP, which constantly attempts to defame the FPÖ as a ‘security risk,’ is revealing itself to be the greatest threat to the security of our homeland.”
Darmann argued that the incident casts a new light on the upcoming resignation of DSN Director Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, questioning whether his departure “for personal reasons” was in fact an effort to escape responsibility. “Did he know about this and other ticking time bombs in his own house?” Darmann asked.
The FPÖ also rejected the DSN’s attempt to label the affair an “isolated incident,” arguing that it “destroys trust in state institutions.” Darmann said, “There can be no talk of functioning control mechanisms when an extremist can obviously divert sensitive data unnoticed over an extended period.”
He further accused Karner of targeting “law-abiding citizens instead of Islamists,” citing the minister’s proposals for digital surveillance tools and stricter gun laws while claiming Islamist networks “can apparently do as they please within the state security services.”
