Police Share Images of Arrest of Suspected Russian Spy at Skup Conference

TØNSBERG / OSLO (Dagbladet): At a lecture during the journalist conference Skup in Tønsberg, the police’s security service presented images and a short video clip showing the arrest of the UiT guest researcher they suspect is a Russian spy.

– There is an enormous device behind this picture. There are many years of work behind it, said a PST employee during the lecture at the conference.

PST showed the images in a rare lecture about how they work. They have not yet been shown to the public.

Deep cover

The UiT researcher has been in Norway with Brazilian identity under the name José Assis Giammaria.

PST believes his real identity is Mikhail Mikushin, and that he is an agent of the Russian military intelligence service GRU. They believe that over several years he has built up his identity under so-called deep cover

He himself denies this.

The guest researcher has been in police custody since he was arrested in Tromsø. PST believes he has operated as an illegalist under the guise of being a guest researcher.

In Tromsø, he lived in a quiet neighborhood not far from the faculty where he worked at UiT.

Arrested in Tromsø

Security researcher Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv at the university has described that the visiting researcher spoke little about personal matters.

– He talked little about personal things and his life. But I didn’t think about it, people are different and some are more private, she told Dagbladet shortly after the arrest became known.

She was contacted by the guest researcher now charged with espionage a year before the arrest took place.

The guest researcher was arrested on his way to work on Tuesday 25 October last year. He was arrested by PST in collaboration with local police.

It was the first time that PST has arrested someone in Norway whom they suspect of being illegal, meaning that they have operated undercover.