How was a gay Islamist porn star able to penetrate Germany’s intelligence agency?

Anybody who has observed Germany in recent years may have noticed that the country’s politicians have gone a bit nuts.  For instance, it isn’t just Chancellor Merkel but a broad swathe of the German political class, who believe it wise to invite an additional 1-2 percent of the population into the country in a year and only wonder afterwards whether this was a good idea.

Happily there is a reassuring factor: this is that the German police and domestic intelligence agency (the BfV) generally appear to be on top of the resulting challenges.  Listen to any of their representatives and you will be assured that the agency is fit to face the worst that Chancellor Merkel can throw at them.  In these arms of the state, at least, German efficiency and attention to detail remain paramount.

So the news that the BfV has been penetrated by an Islamic extremist who planned to blow up the agency’s headquarters is not reassuring.  Even less reassuring is that it has been penetrated by a gay porn star.  The 51-year old who is now in custody was arrested after the German intelligence agencies noticed that someone posting on an Islamic militant internet chatroom seemed to know an awful lot about the inner workings of the agency.  They soon fingered their man and realised that he was actually their man, only then to stumble on the aspects of his CV that he must have left out at his BfV interview.

Had he not plotted to blow up the country’s intelligence HQ, a German Muslim with a gay porn star past would ordinarily be hailed as a great integration success story.  But anti-climactically it seems that the whole thing carries few lessons for the integration industry.