French Nato spy faces treason trial

Bunel is accused of leaking Nato targets to Serbia

A former French army intelligence officer is to stand trial on charges of treason for allegedly leaking secret information about Nato's bombing plans in Kosovo to a Serbian diplomat.

What he did was not an act of treason. His actions were sponsored by a French service

Lawyer for Pierre Bunel

Major Pierre Bunel could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of committing "treason by providing confidential information to an enemy force".

He has admitted passing on the information to Yugoslavia but denies the treason charges, claiming that he was acting under the orders of a French intelligence service.

The trial will take place in a military court on 11 and 12 December.

'Humanitarian' act

Writing on a website he has set up to fight his case, Mr Bunel says he is confident he can persuade the court of his innocence.

In the event, the bombing was postponed

"I have great hope to convince the Criminal Court that I am not a traitor, and that, on the contrary the main responsibility falls on part of my hierarchy."

Mr Bunel headed the office of the French delegation at Nato headquarters in Brussels and is believed to have passed classified information to the Serbs from July to October 1998.

His lawyer said at the time that he had handed over the documents for "purely humanitarian reasons".

Serbian sympathies

Arrested in 1998 and put under investigation by a Paris court, he was later released and in 1999 a change in the law meant the case was passed to a military tribunal.

The potential Nato targets allegedly identified by Mr Bunel were, in the event, not hit as the alliance postponed the threatened strikes.

Other alliance members, however, have blamed Serbian sympathies within the French military for hampering Nato's campaign in the Balkans.

In 1998 a French liaison officer was accused of allegedly scuppering an attempt to arrest the Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic by leaking details of the plan.