Belarus convicts German for spying

MINSK, Belarus -- A German citizen has been sentenced to seven years in jail for spying in Belarus.

Christophe Letz was convicted by a Belarussian military court in the first foreign spy case in the country's independent history.

Television footage showed Letz behind iron bars in a military court house in the Belarussian capital Minsk, Reuters news agency reported.

The judge ordered Letz to serve seven years in a labour camp for transferring secrets abroad.

Asked if he understood the sentence, Letz replied in Russian: "Understood."

Almost all prisoners are required to do labour during their sentence.

Letz was later shown being escorted from the court into an armoured van and driven away.

Russian news agencies said Letz was arrested in Moscow in September by Russia's Federal Security Service at the request of Belarus's security forces, still known by the Soviet-era acronym KGB.

Letz's lawyer, Vasily Kozlov, told Russia's NTV television that he hoped for a pardon from Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Letz's trial was held behind closed doors.

A former Polish military officer who moved to Germany in the mid-1980s, he did not plead guilty to the charges and said he believed he was a victim of provocation, Russian news reports said.

Officials in Minsk were not immediately available for comment and German Foreign Ministry officials in Berlin declined to answer questions about the affair, Reuters said.

Russian news reports described Letz as a former teacher at the Marshall Centre for Security Studies in Germany, which researches global security issues.