Walter Biot: the decision of the Supreme Court
Espionage: Walter Biot will be subjected to a double trial on charges of having ceded NATO secrets to Russia, despite protests from his lawyers, who announce a new appeal. The first appeal of Biot’s defense was rejected by the Supreme Court which, in the reasons for confirming the precautionary prison for the officer, confirms that the double criminality of the accused, both before the ordinary criminal judge and the military judge, because the two jurisdictions punish different facts.
Biot case: because there is a double process
According to the judges, the ordinary penal code punishes the “procurement of news”, which must “remain secret”, for the purpose “not only military but also political espionage”, while the military law punishes those who obtain information that must remain secret in order to give it to a foreign state on the strength, preparation or military defense of the state. On the content of the news that would have been revealed by Biot, the Supreme Court writes that “in the light of the investigations carried out by the Ros, it was 47 news ‘Born secret’, 57 ‘Born confidential’ and 9 with ‘highly confidential’ classification “.
The protests of the defense were also rejected in relation to the fact that the documents had not been shown to her: according to the judges this does not affect any rights: the investigating judge expressed himself on “trustworthy” acts of the judicial police. The trial judge of the Court of Freedom of Rome who confirmed Biot’s custody in military prison of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, was not required to “disclose the full content of the documents, the anomaly of Biot’s conduct and the confidential nature of them having emerged from the same verification carried out”.
The military’s lawyers don’t give up
The Court of Freedom “observed how the attribution of the secrecy classification of the deed took place, identifying the categories of secret, very secret, confidential and highly confidential deeds, to explain that the Ros had identified 47 deeds Born secret (i.e. covered by the qualification of secret acts), 57 by the qualification of Born Confidential (ie reserved) and 9 still highly confidential “. The verdict also recalls that these were” documents to which Walter Biot had had access, in the light of his qualification, which enjoyed “the pass” in maximum terms “and was” hinged in the Staff, where he dealt with foreign military operations and the international military police “. The Supreme Court also specifies that” 181 photographs of documents and images taken from a computer video and taken with an S9 smartphone, identical model to the one seized at Biot’s home were found “. This information they were – according to the indictment – passed to the Russian diplomat Dmitry Ostroukhovthen repatriated.
The lawyer Roberto De Vitathan with the colleague Antonio Laudisa defends Biot, does not intend to give up and challenges the decision of the judges: “No accused must undergo two trials for the same factis a principle of legal civilization, on May 31, 2022 the Supreme Court will have to resolve the conflict of jurisdiction and avoid the risk of two life sentences for the same fact “.
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