At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe in 2020, the German government commissioned a secret intelligence operation under the codename of Saaremaa to investigate the origins of the Covid-19 virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2. As part of this investigation, the BND analyzed scientific data from a number of Chinese research laboratories, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The BND noted that the Chinese labs had conducted “gain-of-function” virology experiments, whereby mutations are deliberately induced in naturally occurring viruses in order to enhance their existing qualities, such as transmissibility and potency. Such experiments are considered highly dangerous. The BND also observed that these facilities demonstrated numerous violations of routine laboratory safety regulations. When the BND submitted their report, their conclusion was that there was an 80 to 95 percent probability that Covid had originated in a Chinese lab and was then leaked accidentally. Upon the report’s completion in 2020, Bruno Kahl, who has been the BND’s president since 2016, personally briefed then-Chancellor Angela Merkel on its findings. The German Chancellery ordered that these results were to be kept hidden from the public. Several politicians who were in office at the time that the report was drawn up, including former Minister of the Chancellery Helge Braun, former State Secretary for Intelligence Johannes Geismann, and Angela Merkel herself were contacted by reporters and asked to comment. All of them refused to answer.
It did not stop there, shortly after Olaf Scholz took over from Angela Merkel in December 2021, Kahl again briefed the chancellor on the report’s findings. It was still kept secret.