Germany’s foreign intelligence service concluded with 80-90% confidence that the coronavirus pandemic likely originated from a laboratory accident in China, according to an investigation by two German newspapers published Wednesday.

The German Federal Intelligence Service or Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) assessment, codenamed “Project Saaremaa,” was conducted in 2020 but never publicly released, German newspapers Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung reported.

Intelligence officials found indications that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been conducting “gain-of-function” experiments, where viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans, the papers said. The BND also reportedly uncovered evidence of multiple safety regulation violations at the laboratory.

The assessment was commissioned by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office, according to the newspapers. The findings were reportedly shared with the US Central Intelligence Agency in autumn 2023.

China firmly rejected these claims on Thursday.

“It is ‘extremely unlikely’ that the pandemic was caused by a lab leak. This is the authoritative conclusion reached by the experts of the WHO-China joint mission,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a news conference in Beijing.

Mao referenced a 2021 World Health Organization investigation that concluded after a 12-day visit to Wuhan that a laboratory leak was “extremely unlikely” as the pandemic’s origin.

“We believe the COVID-19 origins-tracing is a matter of science, and the judgment should be made by scientists,” she added, expressing opposition to “all forms of political manipulation” on the issue.

The BND’s assessment aligns with recent statements from US intelligence agencies. In January, the CIA concluded that a “research-related origin” was more likely than natural spillover, though it expressed “low confidence” in this determination. The FBI reached a similar conclusion in March 2023.

Neither the BND nor current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz provided comments on the newspaper reports.

Scientists remain divided on COVID-19’s origins, with some supporting the natural spillover theory that the virus jumped from bats to humans, possibly through an intermediate animal host.

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