Austria brings criminal case against ex-official accused of spying for Russia

VIENNA (Reuters) -Former Austrian intelligence official Egisto Ott is facing a criminal case, accused of corruption and spying for Russia by supplying an encrypted laptop and leaking sensitive information for years, prosecutors said on Friday.

Ott, who formerly worked for the now defunct Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), which was then Austria's main domestic intelligence agency, was arrested in March 2024 on suspicion of spying.

Ott has denied all wrongdoing. His lawyer declined to comment on Friday.

Vienna prosecutors said in a statement they were bringing a case against Ott and an unidentified police officer, alleging offences including working for or supporting an intelligence agency to the detriment of Austria, bribery, misuse of office and breaching official secrecy.

The statement said Ott is accused, among other things, of supporting an unspecified Russian intelligence agency by "collecting secret information and a large amount of personal data from police databases between 2017 and 2021 for the purpose of transmitting them to Jan Marsalek and unknown representatives of the Russian intelligence service".

It added that Ott allegedly received payment in exchange.

Marsalek is the fugitive former chief operating officer of German payments company Wirecard that collapsed in scandal in 2020 owing creditors almost $4 billion. Marsalek has been on the run since then. A London court found this year that he had run a ring of Bulgarian spies in Britain working for Russia.

Ott is also accused of supplying, at Marsalek's behest, a so-called SINA-S laptop, including hardware used by European Union governments for secure communications, to an unknown person in exchange for 20,000 euros ($23,000). The laptop was then handed over to a Russian intelligence agency, it added.

Allegations and evidence have been mounting that Marsalek, who is Austrian, orchestrated Russian spying activities in his home country and ran double agents in its domestic intelligence service. Given his fugitive status, nobody is known to represent Marsalek in this matter.

The issue also featured in last year's parliamentary election, with several parties accusing the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) of being dangerously pro-Russia, which it denies.

The FPO came first in the election but was unable to form a ruling coalition. The conservative People's Party now leads a three-way coalition government with other centrist parties.

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(Reporting by Francois MurphyEditing by Frances Kerry)