From The Telegraph, March 12:
German intelligence found 80 to 95pc probability that Covid-19 came from Wuhan lab accident – but chancellor ‘buried findings’
Germany covered up an explosive intelligence report that found a strong probability that the Covid pandemic was caused by a laboratory accident in China.
A joint investigation by two German newspapers alleges that Angela Merkel, the then chancellor, and her successor Olaf Scholz both turned a blind eye to the report, produced by Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND.
According to Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit, the BND concluded in 2020 that an accident in a laboratory in Wuhan led to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
The report, based on public records, data from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a German intelligence operation known as “Saaremaa”, found an “80 to 95 per cent” probability that Covid-19 came from Wuhan.
The BND presented the findings to Mrs Merkel, who chose to keep the information “under lock and key”, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung’s report.
The agency later presented the findings to Mr Scholz, when he took over as chancellor in 2021. He ordered a review of the findings but did not share them with the public or members of parliament.
A spokesman for Mrs Merkel declined to comment when approached by Süddeutsche Zeitung. A German government spokesman said it “does not publicly comment on intelligence affairs”.
It comes after the CIA announced in January that a laboratory leak in China was probably the cause of the pandemic rather than natural causes.
However, that review was based on a so-called low confidence assessment, meaning it lacked conclusive intelligence evidence.
A CIA spokesman said at the time: “The CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the Covid-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting....
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