BERLIN (AP) – A German man has been accused of espionage for allegedly passing information on properties used by the German parliament to Russian military intelligence, prosecutors said Thursday.
The suspect, identified only as Jens F. in accordance with German privacy regulations, worked for a company repeatedly contracted to monitor portable electrical devices by the Bundestag or the House of Commons, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
This gave him access to PDF files with floor plans of the buildings involved. The Bundestag is located in the Reichstag building, a Berlin landmark, but uses several other locations as well.
Prosecutors said the suspect had decided “of his own accord” sometime before early September 2017 to provide information about the properties to Russian intelligence. They said he had sent the PDF files to an employee of the Russian embassy in Berlin, who was an officer in the Russian military intelligence service GRU.
They did not indicate how his activities came to light.
Charges against the suspect, who is not in custody, were filed in a Berlin court on February 12. The court will have to decide whether to proceed with a trial.
Relations between Germany and Russia have been ravaged in recent years by a growing list of problems.
In October, the European Union imposed sanctions on two Russian officials and part of the GRU agency for a cyber attack against the German parliament in 2015.
In addition, a Russian man accused of murdering a Georgian man in broad daylight in central Berlin on orders from Moscow in 2019 is on trial in Berlin.
And last year’s poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was flown to Germany for treatment and then arrested immediately upon his return to Russia, has created further tensions.