Austrian Intelligence Employee Arrested for Leaking Data to Muslim Brotherhood

A major secu­ri­ty breach involv­ing an Islamist-linked insid­er with­in Austria’s state secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus has been uncov­ered by Aus­tri­an media. On 8 Octo­ber 2025, Pro­fil report­ed that an employ­ee of the Direc­torate of State Pro­tec­tion and Intel­li­gence (DSN) was sus­pect­ed of leak­ing sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, rais­ing con­cerns about nation­al secu­ri­ty. The arti­cle begins:

Once again, the Direc­torate of State Pro­tec­tion and Intel­li­gence (DSN) has had a prob­lem with infil­tra­tors. An employ­ee was recent­ly tak­en into cus­tody and tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed from duty. Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion avail­able to Pro­fil, the man, who worked in the field of anti-ter­ror­ism, alleged­ly informed indi­vid­u­als in the Islamist realm (the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood) that they were under inves­ti­ga­tion. He is also sus­pect­ed of telling them what the indi­vid­ual inves­ti­ga­tions were about. This is a severe blow for the DSN giv­en the cur­rent high threat lev­el. Islamist net­works are high­ly active – accord­ing­ly, the work in the office con­cern­ing such cells has been inten­sive. Any kind of pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tions can, of course, be sab­o­taged by such leaks. Accord­ing to Pro­fil infor­ma­tion, a raid was also car­ried out at the employee’s res­i­dence. The man was tak­en into cus­tody, report­ed, and inter­ro­gat­ed. [Trans­lat­ed from Ger­man orig­i­nal using Perplexity.]

Read more: https://www.profil.at/investigativ/exklusiv-maulwurf-im-staatsschutz-enttarnt-und-verhaftet/403091338

Key Points

• A DSN employ­ee alleged­ly leaked details of ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tions to Islamist cir­cles, includ­ing the Mus­lim Brotherhood.
• The sus­pect was sus­pend­ed and his res­i­dence was searched; an inter­ro­ga­tion followed.
• The case rep­re­sents a seri­ous set­back for Aus­tri­an secu­ri­ty after pre­vi­ous scan­dals and orga­ni­za­tion­al reforms.
• Author­i­ties con­firmed inter­nal con­trols revealed the breach, which they say pre­vent­ed greater harm to state security.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria: Leadership and Government Countermeasures

The Liga Kul­tur (Cul­tur­al League), found­ed in 1998, is essen­tial­ly the Aus­tri­an branch of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) and is a co-founder of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM), rep­re­sent­ing the GMB across Aus­tria. The lead­er­ship has includ­ed Ammar Shakir as the high­est-rank­ing Mus­lim Broth­er, whose wife, Ame­na Shakir, is the sis­ter of Ibrahim El-Zay­at, one of the most impor­tant lead­ers of the GMB in Ger­many and Europe.

In Novem­ber 2020, Aus­tri­an police con­duct­ed sweep­ing raids across 60 loca­tions tar­get­ing more than 70 indi­vid­u­als and sev­er­al asso­ci­a­tions sus­pect­ed of belong­ing to and sup­port­ing the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Hamas, with pros­e­cu­tors inves­ti­gat­ing alleged offens­es includ­ing form­ing a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, financ­ing ter­ror­ism, and mon­ey laun­der­ing. The oper­a­tion involved more than 930 offi­cers con­duct­ing search­es in Styr­ia, Carinthia, Vien­na, and Low­er Aus­tria, with Liga Kul­tur and the Islamis­ches Kul­turzen­trum in Graz among the lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions tar­get­ed. As of 2025, the oper­a­tion is large­ly con­sid­ered a fail­ure due to a lack of crim­i­nal con­vic­tions and sev­er­al court cas­es won by the suspects.

Exter­nal references:

• Prozess um üble Nachrede: “Lux­or”, Boule­vard und Muslimbrüder
• Aus­tria police raid Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, Hamas tar­gets — Deutsche Welle
• Doc­u­men­ta­tion Cen­tre Polit­i­cal Islam — Aus­tri­an Gov­ern­ment Research Center

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.