A Vienna court has convicted former Austrian intelligence officer Egisto Ott of spying for Russia, sentencing him to four years and one month in prison in what has been described as one of Austria’s most significant espionage cases in decades.
The verdict was delivered on May 20, 2026 at the Vienna Regional Criminal Court. Ott, 63, was found guilty of espionage to the detriment of Austria, as well as misuse of office, bribery, aggravated fraud and breach of trust. He was acquitted on some lesser charges. He had faced up to five years behind bars, the maximum sentence under Austrian law for the espionage charge.
Prosecutors accused Ott, a former employee of Austria’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), of passing sensitive information to Russian intelligence services and to Jan Marsalek, the fugitive former Wirecard executive widely suspected of working for Moscow.
According to the indictment, Ott is alleged to have acted on Marsalek’s orders between 2015 and 2022, receiving payments of more than €80,000 in return.
This included personal data on individuals sought by Russia, such as Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who has since left Austria for security reasons, as well as former Russian spies.
Investigators said Ott tapped national and international police databases to gather personal details on targets, including locations, vehicle registration numbers and travel movements. To collect information, prosecutors alleged, he also sent “requests for assistance” to partner services in Italy and the United Kingdom, drawing on European databases without authorisation.
Ott was also reportedly involved in the sale of secure Austrian state equipment, including laptops and mobile phones for around €20,000. One of the encrypted devices is said to have contained hardware for secure electronic communication not publicly available, according to the prosecution.
The case also involved the 2019 Tiergarten murder in Berlin. According to the prosecution, Ott prepared an analysis for the Russian secret service on the assassination of the Georgian-born Chechen exile Zelimkhan Khangoshvili and the subsequent actions of the German authorities.
He was found guilty of producing a “flaw analysis” with proposals for targeted killings by Russian intelligence services. Khangoshvili was shot dead in a Berlin park in August 2019 by a Russian operative later identified as Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in Germany before being freed as part of a prisoner swap with Moscow in August 2024.
Ott has consistently denied the charges, maintaining his innocence throughout the trial, which began in January 2026. His lawyer announced plans to appeal the verdict immediately after sentencing.
“I’m surprised that almost the highest penalty has been given to a person without prior conviction,” Ott’s lawyer Anna Mair said after the ruling. “We will challenge the verdict in its entirety.”
Ott’s conviction follows a lengthy court trial that began in January 2026 and included testimony from around 40 witnesses across roughly 12 days of hearings. The proceedings were closely followed in Austria due to the former intelligence officer’s alleged ties to the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ).
Austria has been historically viewed by some as a hub for intelligence operations due to its neutral status and location in Central Europe. The country is an EU member state but does not belong to NATO, and Vienna remains home to several international organisations, including a major United Nations office.
The conviction comes amid heightened EU and NATO scrutiny of Russian influence operations.
