A man described by the justice ministry as the Netherlands ‘greatest ever modern day spy’ has been jailed for 12 years for passing state secrets to Russia.

A court in The Hague ruled on Tuesday the 61-year-old former civil servant had for years given information to a Russian couple operating in Germany in return for money. The public prosecution department had called for a 15-year sentence.

The court said Raymond Poeteray delivered hundreds of documents covering EU and Nato political and military information to Russia. By doing so, Poeteray, who was a consular official for the foreign affairs ministry, had threatened the security of the Netherlands and its allies, the court said.

Debts

Poeteray was paid some €90,000 for his work and was deeply in debt when he began working for Russia in 2008.

The couple in Germany, known by the names Andreas and Heidrum Anschlag, were actually Russian spies who posed as a normal family, having arrived in the country at the end of the 1980s, pretending to be Austrians of South American origin, according to earlier media reports.

They went on trial in Germany in January charged with giving Russia’s foreign intelligence service information on German, EU and NATO security policies. They face 10 years in jail.

Files

The arrest of the couple led investigators to P. He was arrested at Schiphol airport in 2012 while en route for Bangkok.

Officials found four usb sticks in his luggage containing confidential information, two of which could be traced back to the couple. Hundreds of documents were later found at his home.

Poeteray was the focus of media attention in 2007 when he and his wife were accused of dumping of their seven-year-old South Korean adopted daughter, a charge he vigorously denied.