Pakistani national jailed in Germany for plotting assassination attempts

A 31-year-old Pakistani national has been sentenced to four years and three months in prison for spying for Iran and plotting assassination attempts on high-profile citizens in Germany.

A German court convicted Pakistani national Mustafa Haider Syed Naqfi, as he was reportedly tasked to facilitate Iran revolutionary guards by providing details of the high profile leaders and Israel related specific targets for possible attacks in Germany.

Naqfi is an affiliate of a Karachi-based political party, who came to Germany in 2012 to study for an engineering degree at the University of Bremen. Naqfi had visited Iran several times on the pretext of visits to religious sites. In Iran, he attended several training sessions, the Daily Times reported.

German authorities arrested Naqfi with sensitive data about Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician Reinhold Robbe.

During interrogation, he revealed that he was tasked with spying on politicians affiliated with Social Democratic Party of Germany and to facilitate assassination attempts on high-profile citizens in case conflict between Iran and Germany or Israel was to escalate.

Naqfi received more than 2,000 Euros (2,170 dollars) for his spying activities which included collecting extensive material on the former head of the German-Israeli Association and on a French-Israeli professor from an economic university in Paris, for the elite Quds Force unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Pakistan's foreign office in Islamabad has remained silent on the issue of Naqfi's arrest and his conviction but a spokesperson at Pakistani embassy in Berlin said that a diplomat has been assigned to the case was in touch with the convict, who is serving a four-year-three-month-long sentence. The diplomat was also pursuing the matter with German authorities.

Though Iran has consistently denied involvement in anti-Pakistan activities, there have been incidents that have impacted diplomatic ties between the two Asian neighbours.