A Latvian court on Thursday jailed former interior minister Janis Adamsons and a Russian accomplice for spying for Russia’s FSB security service.
The court in Riga sentenced Adamasons to eight years and Adamsons and Gennady Silonov for seven and-a-half years.
“Adamsons collected secret and unclassified information for the Russian secret services, in an illegal, systematic and targeted way,” judge Erlens Ernstsons said.
Adamsons, 67, was Latvia’s interior minister in 1994-1995, serving as a lawmaker for six parliament terms before his arrest in 2021.
He had served in the Soviet navy as a political officer from 1979 to 1992 and signed up for the reconstituted Latvian navy upon his return to the country.
He became the navy’s deputy chief and was interim head of a border force brigade.
“Adamsons was not interested in collaborating with the Russian secret services for money. More plausibly, he did so out of ideological convictions,” one of the prosecution team told LTV television.
Silonov was a KGB officer in the 1980s and collected information from Adamsons in around 40 meetings over four years, according to news website Pietiek.com.
Silonov was a career officer within the Soviet intelligence agency until 1991, when Latvia declared its independence and outlawed the KGB.
Both defendants pleaded not guilty and intend to appeal the verdict.
