NEWS

Czechs arrested on Limnos for espionage claim to be game developers

Two Czech nationals arrested on the northeastern Aegean island of Limnos on Sunday on espionage charges told a prosecutor on Lesvos on Tuesday that they are computer programmers and were taking photographs of military installations on the island in order to improve the graphics of a new video game they are helping develop, according to the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency.

The two unnamed suspects, aged 28 and 33, said that they work for Czech gaming company Bohemian Interactive, which is developing the Arma 3 video game, an open-world tactical shooter set in the near future during a NATO war against invading forces from the east.

The two suspects were picked up for questioning by police on Sunday after being reported to have been shooting video and still shots of military installations on Limnos and the nearby islet of Ai-Stratis. They told officers and the prosecutor hearing the preliminary espionage charges that the landscapes and installations in Arma 3 are fashioned after the high-security islands, which are just a few hundred meters from the Turkish coast. They also claimed that they were unaware that photographing and video-taping military installations is strictly prohibited.

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