Egisto Ott case

Close cooperation with high-ranking diplomat

Egisto Ott is accused of espionage and passing on state secrets to Russian contacts.(Bild: stock.adobe.com, youtube.com, Krone KREATIV)

Investigation files in the case of the alleged spy Egisto Ott apparently show close cooperation between the imprisoned former constitutional protection officer and the former Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, Johannes Peterlik. The two are accused of having worked on setting up a kind of "shadow secret service".

The then Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry asked the alleged spy for help in obtaining a weapons pass. Ott then contacted a senior official at the LVT Vienna, who was looking for a "loophole". According to the Vienna public prosecutor's office's reasons for discontinuing the case, this would have been possible without intervention. The investigation against Peterlik was also dropped in another case: He had asked Ott to query a suppressed telephone number with the provider.

According to the public prosecutor's office, the former BVT employee would no longer have been authorized to carry out such a query. After all, he had already been assigned to the Security Academy at the time.

Investigations against Peterlik for betraying secrets to Ott in connection with the freelance journalist Max Zirngast, who was imprisoned in Turkey at the time, were also discontinued in August 2022. At the time of the crime, the media coverage was already so extensive, according to the statement of reasons, that the "accused cannot be proven to have intended to disclose or exploit the residence permit".

Marsalek and the Novichok formula
Peterlik became Secretary General of the then Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl (FPÖ) in 2017. After the Ibiza scandal, he was sent to Indonesia as ambassador, but was soon suspended. He is said to have passed on the secret formula of the nerve agent Nowitschok to the fugitive Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek.

The ÖVP recently raised accusations that Peterlik and Ott had worked on setting up a "shadow secret service" under Kneissl. According to the organization chart, Ott was supposed to have been responsible for a "Unit 4", a coordination office. Peterlik was supposed to have been in charge. The FPÖ rejected the allegations.