A Russian security official has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Lithuanian court for attempting to recruit local officials to bug the home of the country's president.
Vilnius District Judge Regina Pociene on July 7 said Nikolai Filipchenko "worked for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), whose activities include intelligence outside of the Russian Federation."
Prosecutors said Filipchenko, 40, tried to recruit security officials "in an attempt to install special listening devices" to bug President Dalia Grybauskaite at her home and office.
Filipchenko's lawyer said his client "disagrees with the charges" but that it was "too early to say" if he would appeal. He did not testify in the case.
Filipchenko was arrested by Lithuanian authorities in April 2015 while traveling to Belarus on a train from the Kaliningrad region, the Russian enclave that borders Lithuania and Poland.
