The German embassy in the Egyptian capital Cairo is being investigated over charges that local staff accepted bribes to issue travel visas, the country's Foreign Ministry said on Monday, DPA reported.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Andreas Peschke said several hundred visa applications to the Cairo embassy showed irregularities, dating back to 2007. The cases involved several locally hired embassy employees.
At the weekend, Spiegel news magazine reported that German embassy staff in Africa, South America and former Soviet republics were suspected of accepting bribes in return for visas.
Peschke denied on Monday that any South American embassies were being investigated, and said the affected representations were in Africa and the Middle East, as well as one case in the Balkans and one in Central Asia.
In total, the spokesman said nine investigations had been launched, of which six were still ongoing. In cases where the bribery charges were confirmed, he said staff had been dismissed.
Germany was rocked in 2004 by allegations that staff at the embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, had taken bribes to grant visas. The scandal nearly brought down the foreign minister at the time, Joschka Fischer.
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