Convicted Spy for Russia Will Have to Pay Previously Dropped Fine of €15,000

Bratislava, December 5 (TASR) - Bohus Grabar, who's been convicted of engaging in espionage for Russia, will have to pay a fine of €15,000 in addition to serving his conditional sentence, the Supreme Court has ruled. Previously, the Specialised Criminal Court approved a plea bargain with Grabar, handing down a three-year suspended sentence with a three-year probation period to him. In addition, the court fined him €15,000, a sum he had to pay if he wanted to avoid an alternative sentence of two years in prison. The convicted man later appealed against the ruling, with the court dropping the fine in the end. The prosecutor in the case filed an appeal against this decision, however, and the Supreme Court has now upheld his motion and overturned the Specialised Criminal Court's ruling to drop the fine. Grabar acted as an intelligence contact for Russian military intelligence officers who were operating in Slovakia under the cover of the Russian diplomatic mission in the country. In 2021, at a meeting with an individual who went by the name of Sergei Solomasov, Grabar promised to search for, obtain and collect sensitive and classified information concerning Slovak security and intelligence services, as well as cooperation pursued by Slovakia, the EU and NATO with Ukraine. Grabar received a sum of €1,000 for this purpose. zel/df