Submariner admits trying to pass secrets to Russia
(AFP) – 2 hours ago
LONDON — A British Royal Navy submariner pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to meeting two men he believed were Russian spies to pass on secret codes and details of submarine operations.
Petty officer Edward Devenney, 30, from Northern Ireland, contacted a foreign embassy to try to pass the materials to Russia, a judge heard at the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court.The two people he eventually met with were British secret agents.
Devenney admitted one charge of gathering "crypto material", or programmes used to encrypt secret information, and details of the operations of several British nuclear submarines for a purpose prejudicial to the safety of the state between November 18, 2011 and March 7.
He also admitted a charge of misconduct in a public office.Prosecutors accepted his denial of one charge of communicating information to another person. Devenney will be sentenced on December 12 and was remanded in custody until then.
A Royal Navy spokesman said it would be "inappropriate for the service to comment while legal proceedings are ongoing."Britain and Russia have had frosty relations for years, particularly over the poisoning with radioactive polonium in London of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko later in 2006.
A former British official admitted earlier this year that Britain was responsible for a James Bond-style spy plot involving a fake rock in Moscow that contained electronic equipment.
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