On Wednesday, a court in southern Germany admitted a university scientist to a one-year suspended sentence for spying for the Russian secret service.

The presiding judge at the Higher Regional Court in Munich said the 30-year-old researcher from the University of Augsburg “came to terms that he had done research for a Russian secret service.’’

However, the Russian doctoral student denied any intentional wrongdoing during the trial, saying, “I am not an agent’’.

But he admitted passing on publicly available information to an employee of the Russian Consulate General in Munich, who had since been revealed as an employee of the foreign intelligence service, the SVR.

The accused, however, said he knew nothing about the man’s activities.

He said he could not have imagined that the Russian secret service would be interested in publicly available information anyway.

(dpa/NAN)