Estonian is Russian spy: Court

TALLINN

A former senior Estonian state security official has been found guilty of spying for Russia and sentenced to 16 years behind bars, a Tallinn court said July 3.

Aleksei Dressen, 44, who served with the security police, was found guilty of treason for illegally funneling classified information to Russia for years after the Baltic republic broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991.

Relations between Moscow and Tallinn have been fraught with tension ever since, especially since Estonia, a Baltic nation of 1.3 million, joined the European Union and the NATO defense alliance in 2004.

He is the second high-level security official in Estonia caught spying for Russia in recent years. Both Dressen and his wife Viktoria were arrested in February.

Connected to KGB in Turkey

Although she initially denied any wrongdoing, Viktoria Dressen later confessed and was also convicted of treason and given a suspended six-year sentence, according to Agence France-Presse.

During the trial it emerged that Dressen was first recruited while visiting his wife’s parents near Moscow in the 1990s and later connected with Russian intelligence in Turkey, Greek Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Malaysia, Morocco, Tunisia, and Vietnam.