Ott is Charged with Abuse of Authority

The former intelligence service employee Egisto Ott must stand trial, among other things, for abuse of authority. This was announced by the Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office on Friday via a press release. The former BVT officer is accused of having collected data such as locations, vehicle license plates, and travel movements without official orders between 2015 and 2020. He is also alleged to have supported a secret Russian intelligence service in exchange for financial compensation.

Not only Ott is charged

In addition to Ott, a second - unnamed - police officer is also charged, likewise for abuse of authority. The penalty for both defendants ranges from six months to five years imprisonment.

There is a whole list of allegations brought against Ott by the Public Prosecutor's Office. These include the crimes of abuse of authority and secret intelligence service to the detriment of the Republic of Austria, the offense of bribery, the offense of bribery as an instigator, and the offense of breach of official secrecy.

Ott, formerly a chief inspector, is accused, among other things, of knowingly abusing his authority with the intent to harm others' right to privacy of their personal data during the period from April 2015 to 2020 as a then-officer of the BVT. Specifically, he is alleged to have collected a large amount of such data, such as locations, vehicle license plates, or travel movements, without official orders through national and international police databases or through mutual assistance.

The defendant is further accused of supporting a secret intelligence service of the Russian Federation to the detriment of the Republic by collecting secret facts and a large amount of personal data from police databases for the purpose of transmission to Jan Marsalek and unknown representatives of the Russian intelligence service between 2017 and 2021. The Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office accuses Ott of having accepted financial compensation for this and of having determined a foreign liaison officer to pay money for information during a data collection.

The former Wirecard board member Marsalek is said to have worked for the Russian intelligence service himself. He has been on the run for years.

Ott is said to have handed over SINA-S laptop on Marsalek's behalf

Marsalek is also at the center of another charge against Ott. The chief inspector is alleged to have handed over a SINA-S laptop, which contained a not publicly known electronic security hardware used by EU states for secure electronic communication, for 20,000 euros on Marsalek's behalf to an unknown accomplice in November 2022. The laptop is said to have subsequently been handed over to a Russian intelligence service.

Finally, Ott is accused by the public prosecutor of having communicated personal data of BVT officials, whom he associated with the creation of the Ibiza video, to the former Secretary General at the Foreign Office, Johannes Peterlik, in 2019. This allegedly violated these individuals' right to the protection of their personal data and endangered the maintenance of public national security and the success of future intelligence activities, writes the public prosecutor.

In a separate proceeding, Ott was acquitted in March. Further investigations are being conducted in parallel with the upcoming main trial. "Mr. Ott denies all allegations," said his lawyer Jürgen Stephan Mertens to the "Kurier" (Saturday edition). "Mr. Ott is certainly not a Russian spy. That is absurd." And further: "If the indictment is constructed similarly to the previous one, then it will be a relaxed story."

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.