BERLIN — The German employee of a security company
went on trial Wednesday for allegedly passing on floor plans of parliament
buildings to Russian secret services, a case that has further frayed ties
between Berlin and Moscow.
اضافة اعلان
The suspect named only as Jens F., 56, is accused of handing
over a CD-Rom with more than 300 files of floor plans of buildings used by the
German Bundestag to the military attaché of the Russian embassy in 2017.
The military attaché in post at that time is believed to be
an employee of Russia's GRU military intelligence service. The suspect
meanwhile worked for a security company contracted by the Bundestag.
Reading out the charge sheet before a court in Berlin, prosecutor
Frank Stuppi accused the man of espionage.
The suspect did not make any statements at the opening of
the trial.
The court revealed that a plea bargain had been offered with
a jail term of between 20 months to two years, but that was not taken up by the
suspect.
The defense had advised Jens F. not to plead guilty, arguing
there was no proof that he had transmitted the information to the Russians.
According to defense lawyer Friedrich Humke, the
prosecution's case is based on the life of his client — who was once an army
officer in former communist East Germany.
"Countless people have access to the floor plans,"
said Humke, adding that "none of the sent files was marked
'classified'."
Prosecutor Stuppi acknowledged that other people could have
had access to the floor plans, but argued that the indictment was based on the
route that the files had taken.
Key indicators were when the files were saved and how they
were stored, he said.
The court is expected to hear the case until the end of
September.
Tensions
Without citing its sources, Spiegel magazine reported that
the suspect was a former officer of the 9th tank division of the East German
army.
Between 1984 and 1990, he also worked for the feared Stasi
secret police informally, said Spiegel.
The case comes at a time of particularly rocky ties between
Berlin and Moscow over a series of espionage cases, the poisoning and jailing
of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny as well as repeated cyberattacks against the
West.
The West has accused the Russian government of poisoning
Navalny with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in August 2020, which the
Kremlin denies.
Navalny was treated in Berlin before he returned to Moscow
several months later. Upon landing at the airport, Navalny was imprisoned,
sparking demands from the West for his release.
In June, German police arrested a Russian scientist working
at an unidentified university, accusing him of
spying for Moscow.
Germany has also repeatedly accused Russia of cyberattacks
on its soil.
The most high-profile incident blamed on Russian hackers to
date was a cyberattack in 2015 that completely paralyzed the computer network
of the Bundestag lower house of parliament, forcing the entire institution
offline for days while it was fixed.
In another high profile case before a German court, a
Russian man is on trial over the assassination of a former Chechen commander in
a Berlin park, allegedly on Russia's orders.
Moscow has denied being behind such actions.
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