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German reserve officer on trial for alleged spying for Russia

2022-08-11T04:38:57.335Z


A reserve officer of the German army appears from this Thursday before the justice of his country on charges of espionage between 2014...


A reserve officer of the German army appears from this Thursday before the justice of his country on charges of espionage between 2014 and 2020 for the benefit of Russia.

The federal prosecutor's office, in charge of terrorism and espionage cases, suspects him of having provided Russian intelligence services with information on Bundeswehr reservists, "

civil defense

" or even on the consequences of economic sanctions imposed on Moscow. from 2014.

He would also have delivered elements on the site of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, linking Russia and Germany and suspended in February, according to the same source.

If convicted by the Düsseldorf High Regional Court, this man, who allegedly acted out of sympathy for Russia and without being, according to the media, paid for his services, risks a prison sentence of several years.

Russian military intelligence

The magazine

Der Spiegel

claims that the suspect, presented as Ralph G., was in contact with two collaborators of the Russian military intelligence service GRU, officially accredited as military attachés in Germany.

He acknowledged the facts, according to the German weekly, but assured that he did not know that some of his contacts worked for Russian intelligence.

Ralph G. was a reserve officer in the Bundeswehr and "

directed a district liaison command as deputy chief

", had detailed the federal prosecutor's office at the time of his indictment in April.

His civilian professional activity, which has not been specified so far, also allowed him to sit on “

several committees of the German economy

”.

These two hats allowed, between 2014 and March 2020, this man to transmit on “

many occasions, documents and information coming partly from public sources, but also from non-public sources

”.

Read alsoThe Netherlands unmasks a Russian spy who tried to infiltrate the International Criminal Court

In addition to information on sanctions, Nord Stream 2 or the German army in general, the suspect also provided Moscow with "

personal data of high ranking officers of the Bundeswehr and the economy, including their private contact details

", also accuses the federal prosecutor's office.

According to

Der Spiegel

, the reserve officer also delivered excerpts from a draft German government white paper in which passages regarding relations with Russia after Russia's annexation of Crimea had been significantly toughened.

Communication with the Russians took place in the form of face-to-face meetings, by phone and email as well as WhatsApp messaging,

Der Spiegel

claims .

In return, he would have been paid, in particular via “

invitations to demonstrations organized by Russian government services

”.

Precedents

This trial comes in a context of heightened tensions between Russia and the West since the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops on February 24.

Several cases of alleged espionage have poisoned relations between Moscow and Berlin in recent years.

German justice had thus condemned at the end of October a former employee of a computer security company to two years in prison suspended for having transmitted data on the German Chamber of Deputies to Russia.

In April, she also gave a one-year suspended prison sentence to a Russian scientist for spying on Europe's Ariane space program on behalf of Moscow.

Accusations of cyber-espionage against Moscow have also soured relations between Russians and Germans, even before the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

Russia is notably accused of large-scale computer hacking which in 2015 targeted the computers of the Bundestag and the services of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as NATO and the French-language television channel TV5 Monde.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-08-11

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