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By Shane Croucher
Senior Editor
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German federal prosecutors said on Tuesday that they suspect a Danish national was spying for Iranian intelligence to gather information about Jewish targets in Berlin, including individuals, possibly in preparation for terror attacks.
The man, named only as Ali S, was arrested in Aarhus, Denmark, on June 26 and will be extradited to Germany where he is to be charged.
Iran's embassy in Berlin rejected the allegations, calling them "unfounded and dangerous" in a statement sent to Newsweek over email.
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The arrest comes after Israel and Iran were locked in a 12-day conflict that began on June 13 and ended with a fragile ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump, who had intervened with U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The Iran conflict and Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza have heightened security concerns for Jewish people all over the world.
In a statement, German federal prosecutors said they believe Ali S had received an order from an Iranian intelligence service in early 2025 to begin spying on specific Jewish sites and people in their country's capital city.
They said he spied out three properties to this end in June 2025. The specific locations and individuals were not identified by prosecutors in the release.
Newsweek has contacted the Office of the Federal Prosecutor in Germany for comment, as well as the Israeli embassy in Berlin.
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Iran Spy Threat 'Not Surprising'
Remko Leemhuis, a director at the American Jewish Committee in Berlin, an advocacy group, told Newsweek that two of the targets named in the German media were the German-Israeli Society and a property linked to the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
"No one is surprised, because Iran has over the last 20 years, or longer, said that in the case of an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, they will respond, and also they will respond asymmetrically," Leemhuis said.
He said people have for years been caught spying for Iran in Germany, and a German-Israeli friend of his had a security detail for months because of the discovery of a plot against him.
"So it's not surprising and it's something we have been warned about for a very long time," Leemhuis said, adding that Iran will develop cells in Europe and elsewhere unless there is a crackdown on groups they are linked to.
German and European authorities had been too slow to take action against the likes of Hezbollah, a militant group and Iranian proxy, in previous years, Leemhuis said.
But he noted that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently put Tehran on notice that it would pay a heavy price if European citizens were targeted.
Now the Israeli embassies are closed for security reasons in light of the Iran conflict, agents of Tehran "look for soft targets," Leemhuis said.
In Washington D.C, two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot dead by a man who shouted "Free Palestine" in May as they left an event at a Jewish museum.
Update, 7/1/25, 09:30 a.m. ET: Comments by the Iranian embassy in Berlin were added.
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