Laas Leivat

Eston Kohver, an Estonian Internal Security Service (KaPo) officer, abducted and held by Russia for the past year was recently exchanged for Aleksei Dressen, a Russian agent, formerly working in the ranks of KaPo and convicted of treason in 2012 receiving 16 years in prison.

His wife Viktoria, who had received six years in prison, five suspended, had already left for Russia with their children much before that actual exchange.

Dressen, an ethnic Russian, born in Riga in 1968, came to KaPo in 1993 from a police background having been in the `miilits`during the Soviet occupation. His KaPo career was not crowned with a solid work record. In 1994 he lost his ID. The next year he earned a disciplinary penalty for wrongful conduct at work, a charge he would receive several times in KaPo. In 1999 his salary was cut by 30% for two months as punishment - a penalty meant for more than just a misdemeanor.

Why would Dressen and not a more prominent traitor such as Herman Simm be such a valuable asset to be exchanged for Eston Kohver, someone whose fate had captured the sympathy of not only his homeland but most of the media and it`s audience in the West? Even somebody such as technical expert Vladimir Veitman who at least had been a KGB officer before Estonia its regaining freedom.

Experts say one cannot take seriously the Russian security services claim that Dressen was able to supply them with a bountiful amount of documents regarding MI6 and CIA anti-Russian operations in the Baltic states. Dressen worked in monitoring potential terrorist and radical organizations, fields in which Russian intelligence had little interest. Countries cooperate in these sectors. (Pikemalt Eesti Elu 2. oktoobri paberlehes)

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