Herman Simm, a former senior Estonian intelligence official, was found guilty of treason charges on Wednesday and sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison, according to dpa. Simm was also ordered to pay a fine of more than 2 million dollars for selling state secrets to Russia over more than a decade. Harju County Court in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, released its verdict after a trial held in strict secrecy. Simm, who began his career at the Estonian Defence Ministry in 1995, was arrested in September 2008 on treason charges. He served until 2006 as head of the security department at the Defence Ministry and had high-level access to secret information. Information released by the court after the verdict made the seriousness of Simm's crimes plain. He was recruited to the Russian secret service or SVR in 1995 and over the course of the next 13 years passed more than 2,000 documents to them. Some details of the case sound like they come straight from a spy novel. Two SVR controllers oversaw Simm's work, which investigators identified as Valeri Zemtsov and Sergei Yakovlev, the latter operating under an unlikely-sounding false identity as Antonio De Jesus Amorett Graf, with a fake Portuguese passport. Simm met with his contacts in 15 different European countries. In a parallel development, Simm's wife, Heete, learned Wednesday that she will not face charges of being an accessory to treason. Estonian Defence Minister Jaak Aaviskoo told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa the verdict was proof of the healthy functioning of the judicial system. "Taking into account the possible sentences for such an offence, I see the court's ruling as appropriate and proportional," Aavisko said. Aaviskoo also praised the way the case had been prosecuted, saying it had avoided "unnecessary negative attention and possible leakage of any additional classified information." The Simm case caused a sensation in Estonia, reinforcing fears that a "new Cold War" is beginning between Russia and the West. The case is doubly significant as Simm is an ethnic Estonian. One-quarter of Estonia's population is ethnically Russian, and riots in the capital Tallinn in April 2007 following the relocation of a Soviet-era war memorial caused many Estonians to question the loyalty of Russian residents. It came as a shock to many when it emerged that an ethnic Estonian could have been selling information to Russia. German publication Der Spiegel has claimed Simm also operated as a double agent for the German intelligence service, the BND, and may have revealed the secrets of a vital NATO encryption system to Russia.
