The domestic intelligence boss in the eastern state of Saxony, Reinhard Boos, asked on Wednesday that he be replaced.

State Interior Minister Markus Ulbig informed the regional parliament on Wednesday that Boos had offered to step down as of August 1. Ulbig told the parliamentarians that the cause was "apparently the glaring mistakes of individual employees." He said Boos had told him that he regretted the situation deeply, and felt he could not continue in his work under the circumstances.

Boos therefore becomes the third top-ranking member of the domestic intelligence agency, called the Verfassungsschutz in German, to resign his post in less than two weeks.

The president of the nationwide division, Heinz Fromm, offered to quit last Monday, July 2. The state of Thuringia put its domestic intelligence chief, Thomas Sippel, into early retirement a day later.

The domestic intelligence service has come under intense pressure after a series of neo-Nazi murders, committed by a small cell based in Zwickau between 2000 and 2007, were uncovered. The group, who called themselves the National Socialist Underground, killed eight immigrants living in Germany and a policewoman. The string of murders were uncovered by chance late last year after a botched robbery led police to one of their hideouts.

A parliamentary inquiry was established to ascertain how the group, who had known affiliations to the far-right scene and prior criminal records, managed to remain undetected for so long. It has since emerged that potentially pertinent files were shredded by the domestic intelligence agencies, prompting allegations of a cover-up.

msh/ng (AFP, dapd, dpa)