Italian denies passing secrets to Russia

ROME — An Italian navy captain accused of passing classified documents to Russia says he didn’t have access to any information that would have compromised the security or strategic operations of Italy or NATO, his lawyer said Friday.

Attorney Roberto De Vita met with Capt. Walter Biot at a Rome prison, where the frigate captain and Defense Ministry policy officer is being held on espionage charges in an isolation cell.

Biot was arrested Tuesday after Italian special operations forces reprtedly caught him handing over a flash drive with 181 documents stored on it to a Russian Embassy diplomat in exchange for about $5,900.

Italy expelled the Russian and another embassy diplomat for what Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio called a “hostile act of extreme gravity.”

A judge in Rome on Thursday denied Biot’s request to be released from jail and put under house arrest, citing the gravity of the accusations and the concern that he might commit further crimes.

Italian news reports quoted the judge’s order as saying Biot’s actions were “not isolated or sporadic” but wellplanned. The judge said the evidence showed the officer used four cellphones and “had no scruples betraying the trust of his institution for economic reasons.”

Biot’s relatives have said he would never betray his country. But they said he struggled to provide for his family of six and to pay his mortgage on his salary.