German lawmakers assail far

BERLIN (AP) — The German government and opposition lawmakers assailed the far-right Alternative for Germany for its alleged closeness to Russia and China Thursday after an assistant to a legislator for the party was arrested on suspicion of spying for Beijing.

This week’s arrest of an aide to European Parliament lawmaker Maximilian Krah cast an unflattering light on the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which has long faced criticism for Russia-friendly positions. Krah said he would dismiss the employee, Jian Guo, but remain the AfD’s top candidate for the European Parliament election in June.

One reason why Germany is a focus of Russian and Chinese spying is “the existence of a right-wing extremist party ... that is prepared eagerly to take up every narrative from China and Russia and spread it,” Konstantin Kuhle of the Free Democrats, one of the parties in the coalition government, told a debate in the German parliament in which mainstream lawmakers lined up to criticize the AfD. “So one must say very clearly: AfD is a weak point in German democracy when it comes to our defense of our liberal democracy.”