Vienna has concluded the largest espionage trial in recent years: former Austrian intelligence officer Egisto Ott received a prison sentence for passing secret information to Russian special services.
A court in Vienna found 63-year-old Ott guilty of passing information to Russian spies and Jan Marsalek, a fugitive from justice and head of the bankrupt German payment company Wirecard, reports BBC. Ott, who denies the charges, was sentenced to four years and one month in prison. His lawyer has appealed the verdict.
In addition to espionage, Ott was found guilty of abuse of office, bribery, fraud under aggravating circumstances, and breach of trust.
The court heard that he provided support to the "secret intelligence service of the Russian Federation to the detriment of the Republic of Austria," collecting secret facts and a large volume of personal data from police databases from 2015 to 2020.
Prosecutors stated that Ott passed this information to Marsalek and unknown representatives of Russian intelligence, receiving payment for it.
Marsalek, who is also an Austrian citizen, is wanted by German police on charges of fraud and is currently believed to be in Moscow, having fled through Austria in 2020.
The alleged Russian intelligence agent Marsalek is subject to an Interpol "red notice" — an international request under which he can be arrested if found in any of the countries that are part of this international police organization, which has 196 members.
Prosecutors informed the court that Marsalek instructed Ott to obtain a laptop containing secret electronic equipment used by EU states for secure electronic communication. The laptop, they said, was handed over to Russian intelligence.
Ott was also found guilty of passing data to Moscow from the mobile phones of senior Austrian officials from the Ministry of the Interior. He obtained the phones after they accidentally fell into the Danube River during a boat trip organized by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior.
In court, it was revealed that he copied their contents and transmitted them to Marsalek and Moscow.
The prosecution told the court that Ott "did not have romantic feelings for Russia," but was driven by financial motives and frustration with his job.
Ott denied the charges in court. He stated that he did not work for Moscow but was conducting a covert operation in cooperation with a Western intelligence service.
The case shed light on other alleged actions by Marsalek, who was subsequently charged with fraud and embezzlement, in connection with suspicions of inflating the overall balance and sales volume of Wirecard.
Marsalek is also believed to have led a group of Bulgarians convicted in London in 2025 for espionage on behalf of Russia.
When Ott was arrested in 2024, the then Chancellor of Austria, Karl Nehammer, called the case "a threat to democracy and national security of our country."
In the editorial's opinion, the trial of Egisto Ott became one of the most high-profile espionage scandals in modern Austrian history. This case not only heightened tensions around the issue of Russian influence in Europe but also demonstrated how vulnerable state structures can be even in countries with a developed security system.
