A former Estonian defence ministry official arrested for treason at the weekend is thought to have sold important Nato secrets to Russia, a report said Tuesday. "(Herman) Simm is suspected of carrying Nato's biggest secrets to Russian intelligence," Postimees daily said, without revealing its sources.
"This is an unbelievably embarrassing case," an unnamed defence ministry official told the Estonian daily, which said Simm may have used a Spanish or Italian go-between. Estonian officials have so far not detailed the treason charges against Simm, who was arrested on Sunday.
Another daily, the Eesti Paevaleht, reported that Simm had lost his privileged access to state secrets when Estonia's Nato partners warned Tallinn about possible leaks. "In November 2006 Simm was released from his duty as the head of state secret protection department at the defence ministry and got a job as an advisor to the ministry that didn't include access to secrets any more," it said.
Simm left the post in March. A Nato spokeswoman at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels refused to comment on the case. Simm's wife, a police board lawyer, was also arrested on suspicion of being an accessory to treason. Simm worked at different positions in Estonia's defence ministry between 1995 and 2006.
He was one of a few key officials charged with setting up a security system to protect sensitive state information to prepare the 1.3 million-strong country's entry into the European Union and Nato in 2004. An ex-Soviet Baltic Sea republic, Estonia shed communism and broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991. Like many senior figures of his generation, Simm was schooled by the Soviets and received his master's degree from Soviet Union Academy of Interior Affairs.
Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves has called the case "extremely regrettable" and vowed to reinforce Estonia's intelligence security "so that we will not be hit by such cases in the future." Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip was less diplomatic. "For a cad and villain like this one even 15 years in prison will be a very mild punishment," Ansip said, quoted by the Estonian media. Under Estonian law, treason convictions can lead to prison terms between three and 15 years.