Italy seeks life term for captain accused of giving Russia secrets

Walter Biot, 56, was arrested in 2021 while he was meeting a Russian embassy staff member in a car park in Rome. Italy subsequently expelled two Russian diplomats and accused Biot of handing over secrets, including classified NATO documents, in return for 5,000 euros ($5,280).

An Italian military prosecutor on Thursday demanded life in prison for a navy captain accused of passing secret documents to Russia in return for cash. Walter Biot, 56, was arrested in 2021 while he was meeting a Russian embassy staff member in a car park in Rome.

Italy subsequently expelled two Russian diplomats and accused Biot of handing over secrets, including classified NATO documents, in return for 5,000 euros ($5,280). His lawyer has said he did not hand over any secret information, but a court last year rejected this when it refused a request for him to be freed pending the trial.

In a written ruling on the pre-trial detention in April, the court said Biot had handed to his Russian contact a memory card that contained 181 photographs of documents and images from his computer. It said 47 were marked as "NATO secret" and 57 "NATO confidential". Italian media said that among the documents were information about the war on Islamist militants in Libya and Syria.

Prosecutors have said Biot was caught on camera taking photographs with his telephone of images on the screen of his office computer. At the time of his arrest, Biot had the rank of a frigate captain but was working at the defence ministry department tasked with developing national security policy and managing relations with Italy's allies.

Biot's lawyer has said his client was not ideologically driven and had never handed over documents which could "put Italy or other countries at risk". ($1 = 0.9465 euros)

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