Austria: Arrest raises broader questions about counterintelligence capabilities

ON GOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 29, Egisto Ott, a former member of Austria’s now-dissolved domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), was arrested in his house in Carinthia, Austria’s southernmost state. Ott had frequently been at the center of media attention in the past year, in connection with the network surrounding the fugitive financier and alleged spy Jan Maršálek, as well as alleged misconduct relating to carrying out illegal investigations of persons. Ott also seems to have been involved in an alleged attempt to create an intelligence unit, or even an entire shadow intelligence service, embedded inside Austria’s foreign ministry. Now the veteran police and intelligence officer stands accused by the state attorney of abusing his authority and of being part of an “intelligence activity to the disadvantage of Austria” —the only form of spying that is illegal under § 256 of the Austrian criminal code.

Ott’s arrest came several years after intelligence was first shared with Austria by Western partner services —allegedly the Central Intelligence Agency— that reportedly date from as early as November 2017. Back then, Ott allegedly received classified material from his service’s email address to his personal Gmail account. However, Peter Gridling, director of the BVT from 2008 until its dissolution in 2021, stated in a recent interview that the ensuing investigations did not yield actionable results that could be used in criminal proceedings. This statement is highly interesting, as Gridling filed accusations about Ott with the State Prosecutor’s Office himself, and would hardly have done unless he had access to hard evidence. Ott was consequently removed from the BVT and placed in Police Academy Austria (SIAK), which is responsible for training police officers and conducts research related to police and domestic security.

Nevertheless, according to media reporting, Ott seems to have kept and illegally used certain forms of identification that presented him as a police officer. He is also alleged to have maintained access to several police databases and to have retained his network of trusted informants that provided him with intelligence. These included contacts in friendly foreign police services, whom Ott knew from his time as a liaison officer in Italy and Turkey. According to Gridling, these contacts were unaware that Ott had been removed from the BVT under suspicion of being unreliable and potentially even working for Russia. They therefore continued to help him when asked. Ott allegedly deceived his contacts by claiming that he needed information on cases relating to different kinds of extremism. As it turned out, according to the leaked arrest warrant, several of the individuals referred to by Ott as “suspects” in terrorism investigations were in fact Russian dissidents or intelligence defectors who were living as protected persons in Austria and elsewhere outside Russia.

It appears highly probable that Ott also had people inside the Austrian bureaucracy, including former colleagues in the BVT, who continued to provide him with information and assistance, even after the first allegations against him arose in 2017. As of now, at least one other officer from LVT Vienna (the state unit of the BVT) has been found to have illegally provided Ott with Information. It is likely, given the publicly available descriptions of Ott’s activities, that other individuals may be implicated. It also remains to be seen whether individuals involved in this case were able to join the BVT’s successor agency, the new Directorate of State Protection and Intelligence (DSN). Read more of this post