Radu Tinu,  the former head of the Romanian secret police in the city of Timisoara is using information gleaned while spying on Herta Müller to launch an attack on the author.

Tinu claims that the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature winner suffers from mental delusions and  ” has a psychosis, and has no contact with external reality.”

According to Tinu, Müller’s claim that she was fired from her teaching job due to her refusal to work with the secret police is false and the dismissal was the result of her smoking in the classroom.  He also tries to discredit Müller’s accounts of “psychological terror”, saying that the author was “treated with kid gloves”, because she was “surrounded by German secret service” and poor treatment of her would risk valuable diplomatic relations with Germany.

Müller has not yet responded to Tinu’s claims.

If you’re intrigued by, well, intrigue, true spy stories and conspiracy theories, don’t miss the full article in The Guardian.