A former metropolitan police officer Mark Kennedy has been discovered performing undercover police operations in German cities, including Berlin, where he reportedly has been arrested for attempted arson.
Despite the fact Kennedy has never been brought to trial, it became known that he infiltrated protest groups in Germany and even entered into intimate relationships under false pretenses.
This led to an inquiry by Lord Justice Christopher Pitchford, examining the infiltration of political organization conducted by Metropolitan police in England and Wales since 1968. The Scottish government then asked for the inquiry to be widened to cover police actions conducted in Scotland, too, which was later followed by government of Northern Ireland and now by Germany.
British police have admitted that undercover officers have infiltrated at least 460 political groups since 1968, including in Germany. According to Left Party MP Andrej Hunko, one of the parliamentarians who have been calling for the German government to investigate the Kennedy case, British officers were deployed to infiltrate leftwing activist groups, such as "Youth Against Racism in Europe" and "Dissent!".
Sir Christopher Pitchford has also been addressed by a group of 133 individuals asking to make lists of undercover spies and infiltrated groups public.
According to the group's letter, "there are "hundreds of organizations who still have no idea that they were spied upon. This means the overwhelming majority of individuals and organizations targeted since 1968 has had no opportunity to consider the possible consequences of the actions of undercover officers on their work and cannot currently participate as witnesses."
According to police officer-turned-whistleblower Peter Francis, police officers sent abroad receive "absolutely zero schooling in any law whatsoever."
"I was never briefed, say for example, if I was in Germany I couldn't do, this for example, engage in sexual relationships or something else," he said.
On the other hand, he noted that information obtained on a covert mission abroad was frequently shared with local law enforcement agencies.
