US handed Berlin ‘smoking gun’ on Huawei: report

Consumers check out Huawei's display at the IFA home electronics trade fair on September 6, 2019 in Berlin | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

U.S. intelligence officials handed the German government evidence that telecom equipment maker Huawei has worked with Chinese security agencies in the past, local newspaper Handelsblatt reported Wednesday.

The paper reported it saw a classified document from the German foreign service that said “the trustworthiness of Chinese companies cannot be ensured in the context of the security requirements for the rollout of 5G networks.”

The document of the foreign service referred to the evidence as a “smoking gun,” according to the paper, which did not detail the nature of the evidence provided to German officials.

A spokesperson for Huawei said it “welcomes genuine scrutiny based on facts, not on unsubstantiated allegations. We have been hearing allegations about so called smoking guns for decades. Facts speak louder than words.”

The German government coalition is in a deadlock over whether to allow Huawei to supply equipment for its 5G networks. The Social Democrat party and part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party want tough restrictions, but she has previously dismissed calls to ban specific vendors like Huawei.

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