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BERLIN: Iran’s ambassador to Germany was summoned by the foreign ministry on Tuesday after the arrest in Denmark of a man suspected of spying on Jewish targets in Berlin for Tehran.
“We will not tolerate any threat to Jewish life in Germany,” the ministry said in a post on X announcing the summoning.
It added that the allegations needed to be “thoroughly investigated.”
The Danish suspect, identified only as Ali S., was arrested in the city of Aarhus by local police on Thursday, the German federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement earlier on Tuesday.
The man was “strongly suspected of having worked for an intelligence service,” they said.
Ali S. had in early 2025 “received an order from an Iranian intelligence service to collect information on Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals in Berlin.”
To this end, he allegedly scoped out three properties in June.
The suspected reconnaissance work was “presumably in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets,” the statement said.
Speaking on a visit to Odesa in Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that, if confirmed, the incident “would once again underline that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world.”
According to German weekly Der Spiegel, the suspect had taken photos of buildings including the seat of the German-Israeli Society in Berlin.
Investigators believe Ali S. was working on behalf of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Der Spiegel reported.
Germany has been on high alert for possible attacks against Jewish people since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza.
In September, German police shot dead a young Austrian man known to have had ties to radical Islam as he was preparing to carry out an attack on the Israeli consulate in Munich.
German authorities have also been on alert for potential Iranian espionage activity on their soil.
A German-Iranian national was jailed in late 2023 over a plot to attack a synagogue in the western German city of Bochum in 2022.
Authorities said the plot was planned with the help of “Iranian state agencies.”

HONG KONG: Bruce Lee aficionados gathered at a Hong Kong mini-museum dedicated to the legendary martial artist to bid farewell to the site on Tuesday, as operating expenses forced the itinerant archive to close once again.

The Bruce Lee Club, which was founded by the Lee family, had put a collection of about 2,000 artefacts, including decades-old magazines and a large sculpture showing the superstar’s iconic moves, on display in the bustling Yau Ma Tei neighborhood in 2001. But a rent increase shut the project in 2016.

Three years and a move to industrial Kwun Tong later, the club began welcoming visitors to see the collection again just before democracy protests roiled the city, dampening tourism.

In a statement, the club wrote that the social movement followed by the Covid-19 pandemic had “severely disrupted” plans for the archive.

“We anticipated a recovery, yet reality fell short,” it said. “The accumulated expenses over these six years have compelled us to rethink how to most effectively utilize our resources to sustain the flame of Bruce Lee’s spirit.”

It added that it will “explore new ways” to engage with the public, but for now, ahead of what would have been Lee’s 85th birthday, it is shutting shop.

At least temporarily, all the assorted ephemera related to the Hong Kong icon will be boxed up and stored.

Born in San Francisco in 1940, Bruce Lee was raised in British-run Hong Kong and had an early brush with fame as a child actor. He later became one of the first Asian men to achieve Hollywood stardom before his death at the age of 32.

At the unassuming Kwun Tong archive on Tuesday, visitor and martial arts coach Andy Tong called it a “great pity” to lose the place.

“(Lee) helped build the image of the Chinese and overseas Chinese in the Western world,” Tong, 46, said.

While the superstar is widely beloved and celebrated in the city, with frequent retrospectives and exhibitions staged, fans have struggled to ensure organized and systematic preservation.

In 2004, petitioners successfully managed to get a bronze statue of Lee installed on Hong Kong’s famed harborfront, but a campaign to revitalize his former residence failed to spare it from demolition in 2019.

Bruce Lee Club’s chairman W Wong said the Hong Kong government lacks long-term and continuous planning for preserving Lee’s legacy.

But he added the Club “will never give up” their dedication to championing Lee’s spirit.
“Although Bruce has passed away, his spirit continues to inspire people of all kinds,” Lee’s 76-year-old brother Robert Lee told AFP.

“I believe, rather than hope, the spirit of Bruce Lee will forever remain here (in Hong Kong).”