Two Czech nationals who were arrested in September 2012 for taking photos and videos of military installations on the northeastern Aegean island of Lemnos were given 18-month prison sentences for espionage by an appeals court on Lesvos on Monday.



The terms were reduced from an original 2.5 years as ruled by a lower court. Both men denied any wrongdoing.



During both trials, the defendants claimed they were on Lemnos to verify the accuracy of the data used by an award-winning game they created in 2013 as computer programmers for video game developer Bohemia Interactive.



ARMA 3 is a realism-based military tactical shooter video game which used Lemnos as the main source of inspiration for the virtual environment.