Police find body of Russian diplomat at Berlin embassy

German police found the body of a staff member of the Russian embassy on a path at the rear of the embassy buildings last month, reported dpa, quoting Der Spiegel news magazine on Friday.

Der Spiegel said the 35-year-old man was found at around dawn on October 19. It added that it had information that he was linked to a Russian intelligence agency.

The German Foreign Ministry would only confirm that it was aware of the case. It declined to comment further, citing the right to privacy of the person concerned. Berlin prosecutors also declined to comment.

The man could have fallen from an upper floor of the complex, the report said. According to an official diplomatic list, he had been accredited as second embassy secretary since the summer of 2019.

But according to Der Spiegel, he was known to German security as an undercover member of Russia's FSB domestic intelligence agency, which is responsible for combating terrorism.

The FSB has been linked to the murder in the summer of 2019 of a Georgian living in exile in Berlin. The man was gunned down in broad daylight in a Berlin park. A trial relating to the murder has been under way for the past year.