Egisto Ott, 63, was handed a sentence of 4 years and one month behind bars for espionage towards Austria, abuse of energy and corruption.
He had confronted as much as 5 years in jail. Ott has appealed and the sentence just isn’t last.
A fellow Austrian intelligence agent who helped Ott with a few of his operations was handed a 15-month suspended jail time period.
Ott had pleaded not responsible and had been on trial at a court docket within the Austrian capital since January 22 for actions carried out and not using a mandate between 2015 and 2022, in accordance o prosecutors.
The prosecution was based mostly partly on proof supplied to Austria by a western nation that unmasked Ott throughout an investigation. A British witness was heard throughout the trial.
Through the proceedings, jurors, who unanimously discovered him responsible, have been advised that he had submitted requests for help to Italy and the UK in an effort to acquire data within the curiosity of Russia and never of Austria.
He notably operated on the orders of Jan Marsalek, the Austrian former head of the German group Wirecard, who is needed for fraud and believed to have taken refuge in Russia and suspected of working for Russian intelligence.
Ott advised AFP on Tuesday that he rejected all of the accusations, together with suspected abuse of workplace, corruption and espionage to the detriment of Austria, and was “harmless”.
“At no level did I promote or move on in any method data to Russian intelligence providers,” he stated, including he had all the time acted inside the regulation and on orders from his superiors.
In response to the indictment seen by AFP, Ott risked inflicting “severe injury” on Austria’s status amongst pleasant intelligence providers.
