The Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has handed down a three and a half-year prison sentence to German Army officer Thomas H. for espionage on behalf of Russia. This news was reported by ZDF and Bild.
Thomas H., a 54-year-old Bundeswehr officer, was convicted of participating in covert intelligence operations. Evidence presented in court revealed that he began sharing classified information with Russian intelligence services in May 2023, using the Russian consulate in Bonn and the embassy in Berlin as channels of communication.
Investigations showed that Thomas H. gathered this sensitive information while working in the Bundeswehr’s department for equipment, information technology, and technical support in Koblenz. Reports from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung indicated that he stored “important security information” on his laptop and took six photos of training documents from the German Air Force. Subsequently, he delivered a package of documents to the Russian consulate in Bonn and requested further contact.
The officer was apprehended in August 2023. During the trial, he admitted to most of the charges but denied transferring data from his work computer to the Russian consulate in Bonn.
Thomas H. claimed in court that he was under severe psychological distress. According to Der Spiegel, he made multiple attempts to reach out to the Russian consulate for information regarding a potential nuclear crisis in Ukraine and to arrange for his family’s evacuation to safety, but received no response. The defendant stated that he sought to “provide an advantage to the Russian armed forces given the prevailing political circumstances at the time.”
Source from theins.ru