No secret police files held on Jeremy Corbyn, say German officials

German officials have revealed there are no Stasi records held on Jeremy Corbyn amid "spy" claims about the Labour leader.

The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (BStU), who oversees the archives of East Germany's secret police, said their searches "have not produced any records or any other information" on Mr Corbyn.

It comes amid press allegations the Labour leader passed information to a Czechoslovakian spy in the 1980s, which Mr Corbyn has dismissed as "ridiculous smears".

Citing "speculation" over the politician's activities, the German commission said it was breaking its usual protocol by confirming no records are held on either Mr Corbyn or Labour's shadow home secretary Diane Abbott.

Mr Corbyn had previously come under pressure to ask German officials to release any Stasi files that may have been held on him.

A focus on the Labour leader's activities in the 1980s has stemmed from initial allegations in The Sun that Mr Corbyn met a communist spy at the height of the Cold War and warned him of a clampdown by British intelligence.

Mr Corbyn has admitted meeting a Czech "diplomat" for a cup of tea in the House of Commons, but has denied being an agent, asset or informer for any intelligence agency.

On Wednesday, the Labour leader demanded an apology and a donation to charity from a Conservative MP who claimed the Labour leader sold British secrets to "communist spies".

He has also launched a fierce attack on British newspapers over their reporting of the allegations, which Mr Corbyn branded "increasingly wild and entirely false".

The Labour leader's spokesman said Mr Corbyn recalled meeting a diplomat from Czechoslovakia in 1986 as one of many meetings with ambassadors, politicians, activists and dissidents from "the majority of countries in the world".

But Mr Corbyn's own diaries contradict the ex-Communist country's secret police files about another meeting in the House of Commons the next year, with the Labour politician recorded as attending a conference in Chesterfield on a Saturday, the spokesman added.

He also claimed Mr Corbyn's personal safety is being put at risk by press reporting about him.

The spokesman said the case of Finsbury Park terrorist Darren Osborne, who also admitted wanting to target Mr Corbyn, shows "the serious dangers of the use of language in some of the reporting and the language used by politicians around Jeremy's leadership".

He added: "The constant repetition both by Government politicians and sections of the press portraying Jeremy Corbyn as a terrorist sympathiser or as in some way an apologist for terror - which is entirely false - has dangers to it which have been quite clearly demonstrated.

"There needs to be an awareness of the dangers of using that kind of language."