The German foreign intelligence service has collected credible evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic arose as a result of a leak of the virus from a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, DPA reports, citing publications in three German-language newspapers, BTA reported.
In recent months, the service and the German Chancellery have asked scientists to examine the evidence, although the results of this assessment were not immediately available, according to today's publications in three newspapers - "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and "Zeit".
The so-called "lab leak" theory has long been a popular but controversial explanation for the deadly global pandemic. It suggests that the Sars-CoV-2 virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was conducting research on coronaviruses, and began to spread after a suspected accident or malfunction in the laboratory.
The other main theory for the origin of the pandemic is that the virus has a purely natural origin, just like the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic at the beginning of the 21st century.
According to the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" not all researchers involved in the study requested by German foreign intelligence were equally convinced that the virus came from the laboratory.
Some of the researchers believe that the probability of an artificially created pandemic by the institute is constantly increasing, but they do not yet want to commit to such a claim.
A German government spokeswoman told journalists in Berlin that the publications had been taken into account. However, the spokeswoman pointed out that she could not comment on the findings and activities of the intelligence. She said that the competent committees of the German parliament, which meet behind closed doors, would be informed on these issues.
In January, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, appointed by US President Donald Trump, changed his agency's assessment of the origin of the coronavirus.