Tartu county court finds three men guilty of cooperation with Russian special services and committing crime against the state of Estonia.

At the end of last week a citizen of Estonia, Maksim Gruzdev, aged 32, was found guilty of charges of the Estonian Internal Police and the Office of Prosecutor General. As Ilmar Kahro, the spokesman of the office of Prosecutor General, told ERR, the man was blamed for establishing and maintaining relationship with Russian special services. The relationship was targeted at impairing the activities of Estonian security departments.

According to the accusation Russian special services recruited Gruzdev in the second half of last year in the territory of Pskov oblast, Russia. Since then and till his detainment Gruzdev had been forwarding to Russian special services information about activities of the employees of Estonian Internal Security Service, and had been participating in operations of the agency.

Gruzdev was sentenced to four years of imprisonment.

Last October a citizen of Estonia, Aleksandr Rudnev, aged 21, was found guilty of crimes against the state in collaboration with Russian special services. Rudnev was recruited for secret cooperation in spring of 2013 in Pskov oblast in Russia and he was able to forward information to Russian special srevices till his detainment last March.

According to the accusation Rudnev was forwarding observation data about activities of Estonian Defence Forces in southern Estonia and information about Estonian Police and Border Guard South Prefecture border guard stations and service locations.

Rudnev was sentenced to two years of imprisonment for crime against the state.

Last October Pavel Romanov, aged 42, citizenship unspecified, was found guilty by the court because he had started cooperation with Russian special services in 1994 in Pskov oblast in Russia, and had been cooperating with Russian special services till his detainment as a suspect last February.

Romanov had been forwarding to special services of a foreign country data about the defence capacity of Estonia and the duties of employees of Estonian border guard and law enforcement agencies.

Romanov was sentenced to four years and 10 months imprisonment, out of which one year and 10 months should be carried out promptly.

Criminal matters were investigated by the Estonian Internal Security Office and the investigation was led by the Office of the Prosecutor General.