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Syrian gets prison term for spying in Germany

Topics: From the Wires,

BERLIN (AP) — A Berlin court has convicted a Syrian man of spying on exiled Syrian dissidents in Germany for about three years.

The court on Wednesday sentenced 35-year-old Akram O., whose full name was withheld in line with German privacy laws, to three years and three months in prison.

The court found him guilty of regularly providing information about Syrian activists who were opposed to President Bashar Assad’s regime between 2009 and the man’s arrest earlier this year.

The Syrian national was also convicted of providing false information to obtain German citizenship as part of his bid to infiltrate the country’s intelligence services. The court said O., who was employed by Syria’s embassy in Berlin, was seeking to apply for posts with the German Interior Ministry.

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