The 67-year-old was arrested on Friday outside a military camp in Serres for allegedly taking photographs in an area where it is forbidden.
The man was noticed by soldiers, who alerted the police.
Appearing before prosecutors on Saturday, the man apologised and claimed that he “did not realise that the place he was photographing was a military camp”.
According to the same sources, he said that he only took two photos of the camp gate.
When the judge asked him if it is legal in Georgia to photograph military installations he replied that “camps in his country are mostly located in forest areas and are not accessible to civilians”.
The man claimed that he came to Greece on April 28 as a result of a close relative of his wife’s serious health problem
The case follows that of a Greek man remanded in custody on suspicion of photographing supply convoys on behalf of Russia in the port city of Alexandroupolis.
Alexandroupolis has been a key gateway for the American military, used to transport supplies into Europe under a mutual defence pact.
The 59-year-old man of Georgian descent was arrested Tuesday in the northeastern city and taken before an investigating magistrate for a hearing Friday.
A police source told AFP that the suspect, who has identified himself as a house painter, was targeting military convoys to Ukraine.
The man “confessed to taking photos and video of military material, acting on behalf of another person to whom he sent the footage via an encrypted application,” police said in a statement Tuesday.
But during Friday’s hearing, the suspect said he had “done nothing illegal”, according to a judicial source.
He said “photos showing the transport of NATO equipment have already been published many times in the media, both locally and on the internet”, the judicial source added.
The police source had said the suspect, who had served in the Russian army in his youth, had apparently been enlisted by Russia’s GRU military intelligence service via an intermediary.
Source: AFP
