Secret's out: blueprints of German spy HQ disappear

Germany is worried the security of its new €1.6bn intelligence agency headquarters has been compromised, after blueprints of the high-tech building mysteriously disappeared.

"It's a serious issue and the government is interested in clearing up this case as quickly as possible," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said yesterday after Focus magazine reported that the blueprints had been stolen.

The government has set up a committee to investigate the incident and how the blueprints to the nearly finished building in the government quarter, near where the Berlin Wall once stood, may have gone missing despite tight security, he said. Seibert would not say whether the complex would have to be redesigned or rebuilt but added there would be "ramifications" if security had been compromised.

The disappearance of the blueprints is a huge embarrassment for Germany's foreign intelligence agency. The missing plans show highly sensitive areas of the BND's headquarters, including its logistical nerve centre as well as anti-terror installations.