German agency concludes that Covid viruses probably leaked from the laboratory

Espionage agency evaluation was based on an intelligence operation not specified with the Codename “Saaremaa” as well as publicly available data. She was commissioned by the German Chancellor Office at the time, Angela Merkel, but was never published, according to the report.

BND refused to comment. When asked about the report at a news conference, the chancellor who is leaving office, Olaf Scholz, also refused to comment on Wednesday.

Newspapers reported that the evaluation was, however, shared with the US Central Intelligence Agency in 2024.

A CIA spokesman said in January that the CIA evaluated that the covid-19 pandemic is more likely to have emerged from a laboratory than nature.

The CIA stated at the time that it had “low confidence” in its assessment and that both scenarios – laboratory origin and natural origin – remained plausible.

The Government of China says it supports and participated in research to determine the origin of COVID-19 and accused Washington of politicizing the issue, especially because of the efforts of US intelligence agencies to investigate.