Leipziger deals with secret service: three years in prison for illegal Russian exports

Leipziger deals with secret service
Three years in prison for illegal Russian exports

An engineer from the Leipzig area was sentenced to three years and three months in prison for illegal business dealings with Russia. The State Protection Senate found the 57-year-old guilty of seven counts of having delivered goods that could be used by the military without authorization.

The Dresden Higher Regional Court has sentenced a businessman from Saxony to three years and three months in prison for illegally exporting armaments for Russian chemical and nuclear weapons programs. According to a spokeswoman, the court saw it as proven that the man had violated German foreign trade law by repeatedly selling goods that could be used for military purposes to a front company network operated by a Russian secret service.

According to the court’s findings, the company’s managing director acted for purely financial reasons and had no further interests in cooperation with the Russian secret service. As part of a so-called understanding, he had confessed to seven of the twelve originally accused acts and was sentenced for them. The remaining five were dismissed. As a result, some allegations that were originally also charged, such as a violation of the War Weapons Control Act, fell away.

Profit of almost one million euros confiscated

According to the federal prosecutor’s office, between 2017 and 2020 the man had sold electronics and machine tools through his company to Russian special companies that work for military programs to produce rocket technology and weapons of mass destruction. These were goods that could be used for both civil and military purposes and could therefore only be delivered after approval by the authorities due to sanctions.

However, the man did not have permission to do so. Instead, he untruthfully stated harmless camouflage recipients when exporting. The judgment also confiscated the defendant’s company’s profits from the unauthorized exports. According to the court spokeswoman, the sum amounts to around 985,600 euros.

In exchange for a confession, the suspect was given the prospect of a sentence of between two years and nine months and three years and six months. The federal prosecutor pleaded for three and a half years imprisonment, while the defense spoke out for two years and nine months.

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