An Italian navy captain was found guilty on Thursday of selling secret or confidential NATO information to Russia and sentenced by a military court to 30 years in prison, Reuters reported.

Walter Biot, 56, was arrested in 2021 while passing on information to an employee of the Russian Embassy in a parking lot in Rome.

Italy later expelled two Russian diplomats and accused Bio of selling documents, including classified NATO documents, for €5,000.

His lawyer said Biot did not hand over any confidential material and announced Thursday that he would appeal the sentence. The military prosecutor demanded life imprisonment.

“Biot traded secrets and was caught red-handed,” the prosecutor said Thursday. “He has demonstrated a high degree of disloyalty and criminal skills, as well as greed.”

Last year, the court detailed some of the allegations against Biot when it rejected his request to be released to court.

He sold dozens of secret documents to NATO

He said he gave his Russian contact a memory stick containing 181 photos of documents and images from his computer. Of them, 47 were marked “secret NATO” and 57 – “secret NATO”.

Italian media reports that the documents also contain information about the war against Islamist militants in Libya and Syria.

The prosecutor’s office said that in March 2021, surveillance cameras recorded Biot three times when he was taking pictures of the computer screen on his phone.

At the time of his arrest, Bio held the rank of frigate captain, but worked in a department in the Ministry of Defense, responsible for developing national security policy and managing relations with Italy’s allies.

Bio’s lawyer said his client was not ideologically motivated and had never handed over documents that could “put Italy or other countries at risk.”