ATHENS (Reuters) -Greek police have arrested an Azeri man suspected of espionage on the island of Crete, which is home to a NATO military base, based on information from the country’s intelligence service, police said on Monday.
Greek authorities were investigating if the 26-year-old Azeri man was monitoring the base in Souda – a strategic facility for Greece, the U.S. and the NATO military alliance in the eastern Mediterranean – and if the case was linked with the recent arrest of a British man in Cyprus on suspicion of terror-related offences, sources said.
The man, who was arrested on Sunday, had been staying since June 18 in a hotel near the naval and air force base in western Crete. More than 5,000 photographs and encryption software were found on a laptop that was confiscated, along with other digital equipment, from the hotel room, the sources said.
He was expected to appear before a prosecutor this week.
(Reporting by Yannis Souliotis; Writing by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Alex Richardson)
