VIENNA, November 30. /TASS/. The public prosecutor’s office in Austria’s Salzburg on Friday confirmed reports that a retired Austrian army officer, who is suspected of spying for Russia, has been placed under arrest.
Earlier in the day, Austria’s Kronen Zeitung newspaper reported that the regional court in Austria’s Linz had upheld the Salzburg prosecutor’s office’s motion challenging the Salzburg court’s refusal to place the retired colonel under arrest.
In mid-November, a court in Salzburg turned down the public prosecutor’s office’s motion to arrest the man. The court ruled that there was no risk that the suspect could flee the country and bound the man to surrender his foreign passport and report to the local police station daily. He was also bound to inform court if he changed his place of residence. The retired colonel was released after a short period in custody. The Salzburg public prosecutor’s office challenged the court ruling.
The suspect however said he did not consider himself a spy and had never leaked any state secrets.
The Austrian government said on November 9 that they had launched an investigation into a 70-year-old retired colonel, suspected of working for Russian intelligence since the 1990s and providing Moscow with information about Austria’s air force, artillery and the migration crisis. Following an interrogation, Salzburg’s prosecution office reported that the colonel is suspected of having committing a crime under two articles of the Austrian Criminal Code, namely intelligence work to the detriment of Austria, state secret disclosure and deliberate state secret disclosure. The investigation team said that all the crimes could have been committed between 1992 and 2018. If the suspect is found guilty, he may face up to ten years behind bars.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he was unpleasantly surprised to see no request from Vienna for explanations over the affair. Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl cancelled her visit to Russia and that Austria expected Russia to cooperate in full over the case. Austria’s President Alexander Van der Bellen said the situation should not be dramatized until the investigation was over. He stressed he was confident the situation would not tell adversely on the long-tern cooperation between the two countries.