In the espionage trial against a dismissed reserve officer of the Bundeswehr, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court will announce the verdict this Friday (9.30 a.m.). The federal prosecutor’s office has applied for a two-year suspended sentence against the 65-year-old. He should also pay 25,000 euros.

The accused had provided the Russian secret service GRU with information for years, particularly about the reservists in the Bundeswehr. The defender of the 65-year-old German, on the other hand, is demanding an acquittal. None of the information passed on was secret, everything was publicly available.

The defendant fully admitted that the documents had been sent to a Russian military attaché. “I wanted to build a bridge, I never had any bad intentions,” he said in his closing remarks.