With Estonia’s third Russian mole in five years, this time an ex-KGB official, now under arrest, Interior Minister Ken-Marti Vaher has tried to quell concern over how many more people with such a past continue to work for Estonian intelligence.
Responding to the new scandal, former interior minister Jüri Pihl claimed he told Estonia’s head of intelligence as early as in 2008 to retire all workers with a suspicious past. But a top official of the Interior Ministry, Erkki Koort, has told media that it is likely that more agents are yet to be found in Estonia.
In an Eesti Päevaleht interview, Vaher was pressed on whether there are any more ex-KGB still in the Internal Security Service (KaPo). “It’s no longer an issue,” Vaher said. He would not give a more specific answer, though, saying that personnel questions are classified.
Vaher submitted, nevertheless: “It is true though that damage was done to Estonia. To what extent is currently being investigated.”
Last week, KaPo detained one of its own former employees, Vladimir Veitman, whom the agency suspects of having gathered classified information for years on behalf of a Russian intelligence service. A former KGB official, Veitman joined the Estonian intelligence service in 1991. He worked there as a specialist with clearance to classified information until he retired in 2011. According to officials, Veitman has admitted to the suspicions in questioning. Authorities have also recovered significant sums of cash related to the suspicions from various stashes.
Source: Estonian Public Broadcasting
http://news.err.ee/politics/a01fc565-4d6a-47be-b237-d74fda9589f7