Former Italian Navy Captain Walter Biotto was found guilty of leaking state secrets, espionage and corruption on January 19, 2023 at the Italian Criminal Court in Rome and sentenced to 20 years in prison. (U.S. Air Force)
NAPLES, Italy – A former Italian naval captain has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for selling classified NATO documents and other information to an attaché at the Russian embassy in Rome.
Walter Biotto, 58, was found guilty of espionage, corruption and leaking state secrets in an Italian criminal court on Friday, Italian news agency Ansa reported on the same day.
These secrets included details of the fight against terrorism in Syria, where the U.S.-led coalition continues its campaign to wipe out Islamic State.
Other documents focused on Libya, NATO’s potential weaknesses and critical naval issues, according to Italian news media reports.
The United States has air, army, and naval bases in Italy, and the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy also holds the title of commander within the NATO alliance.
Prosecutors say the former frigate captain handed over a USB stick containing more than 180 images from his work computer screen to a Russian military attaché in late March 2021 in a Rome parking lot, Ansa newspaper reported. Stated.
The Ansa report said the images he gave the attaché included 104 documents marked NATO confidential and NATO confidential, and a further nine documents marked classified.
At the time of Biot’s arrest on March 30, 2021, the news agency reported that at least one document was classified as top secret, and prosecutors said the Russian was married and the father of four children. It was unclear whether any other information had previously been received from Biot.
The sentence comes almost a year after another military tribunal sentenced Biot to 30 years in prison in the same case in March 2021 for providing military secrets to a Russian embassy attaché in exchange for about $5,400. It was later given down.
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported on Biot as of March 9, 2023, that in a previous trial, a witness testified at a hearing in October 2022 that he was working in the strategic analysis department where Biot worked. testified that he handled highly sensitive military operations involving NATO. belief.
In mid-March 2021, Bio was seen in three undercover videos taking photos with his cell phone in his office at the Ministry of Defense.
Immediately after Biot’s arrest, Italy expelled him and another Russian diplomat.
Mr. Biotto is being held in an Italian military prison near Naples and plans to appeal both Friday’s sentence and the military court’s ruling, Barron’s reported on Friday.
His lawyer said the double prosecution is unprecedented, according to Barron’s.