Russian scientist in German university sentenced for spying

A court in southern Germany on Wednesday sentenced a university scientist to a one-year suspended sentence for spying for the Russian secret service, reported dpa.

The presiding judge at the Higher Regional Court in Munich said the 30-year-old researcher from the University of Augsburg had "come to terms with the fact that he had done research for a Russian secret service."

The Russian doctoral student had denied any intentional wrongdoing during the trial and had said: "I am not an agent."

He had admitted passing on publicly available information to an employee of the Russian Consulate General in Munich, who had since then been revealed as an employee of the foreign intelligence service, the SVR.

The accused, however, stated that he had known nothing about the man's activities.

He said that he could not have imagined that the Russian secret service would be interested in information that was publicly available anyway.