Investigations in Austria: did ex-minister know about the shadow secret service?

In Austria, an alleged network of agents close to the regime in Russia is under investigation. SWR-Research suggests that former Foreign Minister Kneissl was privy to plans for a shadow intelligence service.

The picture went around the world: in August 2018, Karin Kneissl danced at her wedding to Russian President Putin. Until recently, she sat on the board of directors of the Russian energy company Rosneft.

The non-party politician, who was Austrian Foreign Minister in the government of the ÖVP with the right-wing populist FPÖ until 2019, has been heavily criticized for being close to Putin. To this day, she regularly appears as an interlocutor in Russia Today. Now there is a suspicion that she could have been directly involved in setting up some kind of shadow secret service.

Plans to build a new secret service

In the spring it became known that a group led by Kneissl’s then designated Secretary General in the Foreign Ministry, Johannes Peterlik, was planning to set up a new intelligence service in 2018. Peterlik was to head the Foreign Ministry’s “new security department,” which comprised five departments. Egisto O., for whom a post was planned in the “Coordination Office” department, was the driving force behind the planning.

At the request of SWR O.’s lawyer explained: “In general, one should ask oneself which criminal law norms or internal guidelines are being violated, or whether it is perhaps reprehensible if improvements and the associated establishment of a new department are being considered and precautionary concepts are being drawn up be written.”

Suspicion of spying for Russia

Against O. is still being investigated in Vienna on suspicion of espionage for Russia. The German Federal Public Prosecutor was also interested in 2019 in the course of investigations entitled “Russian Services” for O., like the SWR first reported in February 2021. O. is also suspected of having supplied information to ex-Wirecard CEO Jan Marsalek, who is now a fugitive, in exchange for money.

O. himself rejects all allegations through his lawyer. According to the law firm responsible, unfounded allegations that lack any basis whatsoever have been produced for almost five years now.

According to media reports, the diplomat Peterlik, who was ambassador to Indonesia before returning to the Foreign Ministry, is said to have obtained the strictly confidential OPCW investigation report on the Novichok assassination attempt in Salisbury, UK, from the Foreign Ministry in October 2018. The document contains the formula for the nerve agent and soon came into the hands of Marsalek, who is believed to have gone into hiding in Moscow today.

Counterbalance to the protection of the constitution and military intelligence

With the establishment of another intelligence service, the FPÖ wanted to expand its control, says Austrian intelligence expert Thomas Riegler SWR: “Located in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it would have been the third intelligence service in Austria and would have competed with the military, which is traditionally responsible for foreign reconnaissance.”

Apparently, the then Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (BVT) was also in view. In investigation files that dem SWR are available, it says “that one is preparing to undermine the (former) management team of the BVT in particular – and in this context, in the case of a reform of the BVT, to bring in their own preferences in terms of personnel and organizational structure”. According to the investigation file, Egisto O. wrote to a former FPÖ MP: “We will find a good solution for everyone who helped.”

Kneissl apparently informed about plans

Kneissl claims to have known nothing of these plans. She told the Washington Post in July. But after SWR-Research, she was apparently informed about the plans of the new department. In the investigative documents that SWR are available, there is a screenshot with a message showing that the then foreign minister and Johannes Peterlik needed the areas of responsibility of the organizational chart for ten o’clock in the morning. The message does not reveal who wrote this message and to whom it went.

Contact to German ex-intelligence coordinator

While O. and his comrades-in-arms pushed ahead with the planning for the new department, there was also regular contact with the former German secret service coordinator under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Bernd Schmidbauer. At the beginning of April 2018, O. accompanied Schmidbauer to an interrogation at the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, which dealt with a scandal in the BVT for the protection of the constitution. On the same day there was also a meeting with Peterlik, at which, according to Schmidbauer’s memories, Kneissl was also present.

According to Schmidbauer, he knew that the new department to be created was to be “a secret service based on the German model,” “a counterweight to the other existing services in Austria.” However, he denies having been involved in the construction. The meeting was primarily about the Arab world.

Schmidbauer’s role remains unclear

The investigation documents also show that Schmidbauer also wanted to meet Herbert Kickl, then Minister of the Interior for the FPÖ, in 2018, who had called for “understanding for Russia” in a television interview since Russia invaded Ukraine. Critics see him and Karin Kneissl as two important top functionaries of the right-wing populists who are sympathetic to the Putin regime and who were interested in building up the secret service structure.

Schmidbauer also met Jan Marsalek in 2018. According to Schmidbauer, it was about Nowitschok. Schmidbauer does not want to say who is said to have drawn his attention to Marsalek and the chemical warfare agent,

If Kneissl actually knew about the plans for a new intelligence service and if it had been installed, that would have upgraded her ministry as a “security policy actor,” according to intelligence expert Thomas Riegler. “It would also have been a plus for their ability to act. Knowledge is power,” says Riegler. questions of SWR Kneissl, who now apparently lives in Lebanon, left the allegations unanswered.