Thursday, February 25, 2021
Floor plans passed on
German accused of espionage for Russia
An employee of a company that worked for the Bundestag is said to have passed on floor plans to Russian intelligence services – the Federal Prosecutor accuses him of this and charges him with them. Jens F. is to be tried on suspicion of being a secret service agent.
The federal prosecutor's office has brought charges against the alleged disclosure of floor plans from the Bundestag to the Russian military intelligence service GRU. An employee of a company working for parliament is said to have handed over files with floor plans of its properties to a secret service employee in the Russian embassy in Berlin, as the prosecution in Karlsruhe announced. The German citizen Jens F. should therefore have to answer before the Berlin Court of Appeal.
The federal prosecutor's office accuses the man of so-called secret service activities. According to her, the accused worked for a company that worked several times as a service provider for the Bundestag. It was commissioned to carry out "statutory inspections of portable electrical devices" in Bundestag properties.
In this context, F. is said to have had access to files with the floor plans of Bundestag buildings. Between the end of July and the beginning of September at the latest, he decided "of his own accord" to pass this information on to Russian secret services, the Federal Prosecutor said. He sent a data carrier with the relevant files to a GRU employee at the Russian embassy in Berlin.
The prosecution did not provide any further details on the case. The State Security Senate of the Berlin Higher Regional Court is now responsible for examining the indictment and deciding whether to open a main hearing.
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