August Hanning served as president of federal intelligence service from 1998 to 2005

A former head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has been arrested on suspicion of treason and spying on behalf of an overseas intelligence agency, prosecutors said.

August Hanning, 80, was head of the federal intelligence service (BND) – which operates outside Germany to gather information across the fields of political, economic, and military intelligence – between 1998 and 2005.