TEHRAN/VIENNA, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister said Wednesday that a Russian national apprehended in Austria last week on suspicion of spying was a diplomat and therefore authorities had no right to detain him in the first place.
"He is an official with the Russian Space Agency and at the time of his detention was a member of the Russian delegation. He had functional immunity; therefore, there was no and is no justification for his apprehension," Sergei Lavrov told a Tehran news conference.
"We insist on contacts with Austria concerning his immediate release," Lavrov also said.
The Russian embassy in Vienna said stripping the detainee of his immunity was out of the question as there was no proof of any wrongdoing on his part.
"The Russian Embassy replied [to the Austrian request to waive the detainee's diplomatic status] that dropping his status was out of the question because Austria had provided no evidence or grounds for his detention," the embassy said in a statement.
The detained is a 51-year-old member of the Russian space cooperation team. While the Russian authorities have withheld his name, he is identified by the Austrian press as "Vladimir V." Austria's military counterintelligence was also reported to have detained a junior officer serving with the Austrian Air Force, suspected of illegally transferring sensitive information.
