Both Bild and the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the 51-year-old former employee of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had appeared in gay porn movies before his conversion to Islam in 2014.
According to Bild, agents found the pornographic films in which he appeared while searching his home. The material is not of relevance to the investigation, but will remain a footnote to what is fast becoming the most surreal spy scandal in modern German history.
DPA reports that this is the first time that the BfV has found an Islamist among its agents.
Bild reports that the man was originally from Spain, but had later become a German citizen. Also a father of four children, he had hidden his radicalization from his family.
The agency said on Tuesday that the man had "made Islamist remarks online under a false name, and had offered internal information during online chats".
His chat partner was believed to be another BfV employee. According to the Washington Post, he gave away such precise information that the agents were quickly able to identify him and arrested him the next day.
German media had reported that he was believed to have been planning a bombing at the BfV headquarters in the western city of Cologne.
Der Spiegel and Die Welt said the suspect had partially admitted to the allegations by making references to bomb attacks carried out "in the name of Allah".
But a BfV spokeswoman told AFP that she could not confirm media reports that he was plotting an attack, saying there was no "evidence of a real danger to the office or its workers".
The Washington Post reported that a senior official from the BfV said those who interviewed the man say he may have been mentally ill, and perhaps even had multiple personalities, raising questions about how he could have been employed in the first place.
'We can’t afford another incident like this'
Politicians reacted critically as the revelations unfolded.
But an interior ministry spokesman rejected calls for a procedural overhaul at the BfV.
"We currently have no indication that there are fundamental structural problems," he told reporters on Wednesday, noting that the BfV itself had helped expose the suspect.
"Based on the facts we have, it is too soon to make specific recommendations for action that might arise from this case," which he called isolated.
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