A security officer at the British Embassy in Berlin who collected and passed classified information to Russia told a London court on Tuesday he was ashamed of what he had done.
David Ballentine Smith, 58, said he began collecting confidential information during a dispute with colleagues and in a state of depression in order to get revenge on the embassy.
In November, Smith pleaded guilty to eight violations of the Official Secrets Act, including a charge of passing information to Major General Sergei Chukhrov, the Russian military attache in Berlin, in November 2020.
According to court testimony, Smith, who was arrested in August 2021, collected classified information for more than three years, including secret government correspondence between two cabinet members with then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other documents.
Smith’s letter to Chukhrov, which contained “highly sensitive information about the British Embassy and those who worked there,” sparked a joint investigation by British and German authorities, prosecutor Alison Morgan said Monday.
