Security Police
Kaitsepolitsei
Agency overview
Formed	1920 as the Political Police
Jurisdiction	Government of Estonia
Headquarters	Tallinn, Estonia
Agency executive	Raivo Aeg, Head Director
Parent agency	Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs
Website
www.kapo.ee

The Estonian Security Police (Estonian: Kaitsepolitsei, officially Estonian: Kaitsepolitseiamet, KaPo for short) is a central national security institution of Republic of Estonia. Its purposes are centered around enforcing constitutional order. The Estonian Security Police has primary investigative jurisdiction in some offences committed by state officials; countering terrorism; incitement to hatred; crimes against humanity and peace, including war crimes; illegal handling and trafficking of firearms, ammunition, explosives, radioactive material or other strategic materials; and the protection of state secrets. It also fills counterintelligence duties.

The Estonian Security Police is administered as an agency of the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

While a lot of Estonian Security Police's activities are classified, its overview of the status of national security is published yearly as the Kaitsepolitsei aastaraamat.

History[link]

Kaitsepolitseiamet was first established on April 12, 1920. From 1925 to 1940 the institution was known as Poliitiline politsei (abbreviated PolPol). The PolPol fought against subversive activities of political extremists, espionage, desertion, smuggling and terrorism. The most discussed targets were the Estonian communists whose party had been declared an illegal organisation following the failed December coup, forcing them to operate clandestinely and through various legal fronts, usually as workers' organisations. Communists were supported by the Soviet Union, who had publicly accepted the principles not recognizing the parliamentary order, seeing terrorism as a legitimate activity.^[1] Similarly, the PolPol surveyed pro-Nazi oriented Baltic Germans and extreme monarchists of the White Russian emigres.^[2]

When the Soviet Union annexed Estonia on June 17, 1940 the PolPol was one of the first institutions which was practically in corpore repressed - almost all of its employees were deported in course of June deportations; before the end of the World War II more than 90% of the PolPol employees and their families were killed.^[2]

Re-establishment[link]

The Estonian Security Police was reestablished on March 1, 1991, as a part of restoration of Estonian independence from the Soviet occupation. Until June 18, 1993, the Estonian Security Police was a department of the central police structure; then, it was reorganised as a distinct entity. Following adoption of a new law of security services on March 1, 2001, the status of the Estonian Security Police was reclassified from a police institution to a security service.

According to an Amnesty International report from 2009: "In June, the Estonian Security Police Board published its annual report which made serious allegations against the Legal Information Centre for Human Rights (LICHR), an NGO promoting and defending the rights of those belonging to linguistic minorities. The report stated that the LICHR was used by the Russian Federation to carry out scientific research for propaganda purposes, and accused the LICHR of trying to conceal the specific sources of funding it received from the Russian Federation. These allegations were widely seen as an attempt by the government to misrepresent the LICHR and to undermine its attempts to secure the necessary financial and social support to carry out its work."^[3]

Criticism against the Estonian Security Police has been presented by Risto Teinonen, a Finnish lawyer and neo-Nazi living in Tallinn. In 2009, Teinonen launched criminal proceedings against the Estonian Security Police in a Tallinn court, accusing the organization of politically motivated persecution of innocent people.^[4][5][6]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The web page of the Estonian Security Police
• Julgeolekuasutuste Seadus, Riigi Teataja I 2001, 7, 17

Coordinates: 59°25′52″N 24°44′15″E / 59.431°N 24.7375°E / 59.431; 24.7375

Herman Simm (born May 29, 1947 in Suure-Jaani) is a former chief of the Estonian Defence Ministry's security department and convicted Russian spy.

The Simm case became the first one since the restoration of Estonia's independence in 1991 in which an actual agent was identified, tried and convicted of treason.^[1]

Professional career and espionage[link]

Herman Simm had previously held various positions at the Interior Ministry and the Police Board, including director general of the board, when he started work for the Defence Ministry in 1995 as head of the information analysis office of the defence policy department. In 2001, he was appointed head of the newly formed state secret protection department. As head of the Defence Ministry Security Department, Simm was tasked with coordinating the protection of state secrets. The department is also responsible for issuing access to classified information and for handling data from international organizations, including NATO, the European Union and Estonia’s other defence partners. He also took part in the devising of EU and NATO information protection systems. ^[2]

On September 21, 2008, Simm was arrested with his wife Heete Simm on suspicion of illegal collecting and communicating classified information to an unidentified foreign government.

It is believed that damage caused by Herman Simm was not limited to the security of Estonia. In 2001–2006, Simm regularly traveled abroad to negotiate agreements on the protection of classified information with member countries of NATO and the European Union. Herman Simm also participated in the development of intelligence security with NATO and the EU, where he invited other states to check their security systems. In June 2003, he was issued a diplomatic passport, provided to carriers transporting classified information. In November 2006, Herman Simm resigned from the post of head of the state secret protection department, but continued to work as adviser of the Minister of Defence, retaining access to classified information.^[3]

Investigation and conviction[link]

The criminal case was processed by Estonia's Public Prosecutor’s Office and by the Security Police Board who co-operate with the Information Board and with the Ministry of Defence. (According to the Penal Code, treason is punishable by imprisonment of three to fifteen years.^[4])

On 6 November 2008, the Estonian State Prosecutor's Office released some materials of the investigation, according to which Simm's handler may have been an officer of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) who had been using a false identity of a EU citizen.^[5]

On February 25, 2009, Simm pleaded guilty to treason and was sentenced to twelve and a half years imprisonment and the payment of EEK 20,155,000 (€1.288M) in damages.^[6]

The Harju County Court did not specify which country Simm had handed the secrets to; but chief prosecutor Norman Aas said that Simm had "collected and forwarded classified Estonian and NATO information" to Russia's foreign intelligence service from 1995 until his arrest in 2008.^[7] Aas also said, "He passed on personal information on some Estonian individuals, something that may damage Estonia's interests."

It has been unofficially claimed that Estonia had been tipped off by another country. ^[8] Security Police chief Raivo Aeg said Simm would meet three or four times a year in at least 15 European countries with his SVR handlers, identified as Valeri Zentsov and Sergey Jakovlev.^[7] Aeg also said that an international arrest warrant had been issued for the latter, who is also known under a fake Portuguese identity as Antonio de Jesus Amorett Graf.^[7]

Bankruptcy[link]

On March 23, 2009, Simm filed for personal bankruptcy.^[9] Simm has estimated the total value of his liquid assets at 5.4 million EEK (approx €340,000), but the Ministry of Defence, (upheld by the courts), claimed the total to be 21.6 million EEK, and Simm owes 2.1 million EEK to an unnamed bank. The court assigned Ly Müürsoo as Simm's temporary receiver and set the date of bankruptcy hearing to 17 April 2009. Meanwhile, Simm has been prohibited to realise any of his assets without a permission from the receiver.

Simm's bankruptcy proceedings are complicated by lack of a prenuptial agreement between Herman Simm and his wife Heete Simm.

On 23 April 2009, Harju maakohus granted Simm's bankruptcy application, and declared Simm bankrupt.^[10]

Political ramifications[link]

On April 29, 2009, Nato ordered the expulsion of two Russian diplomats in what The Financial Times^[11] saw as retaliation for the Simm spy scandal. One of the expelled Russians was the son of Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow’s ambassador to the European Union; both he and the other diplomat were attached to Russia’s mission to Nato and were believed to have worked undercover as intelligence agents.

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Economist, Nov 6th 2008: Fog in the Baltic
• Times Online, November 16, 2008: Russian spy in Nato could have passed on missile defence and cyber-war secrets
• The Economist, Feb 26 2009: Spy scandal in Estonia
• Spiegel Online: "Es ist ein Dauerritt auf Messers Schneide", interview with Herman Simm (in German)

Jaan Kross (19 February 1920 – 27 December 2007)^[1] was an Estonian writer.

Early life[link]

Born in Tallinn, Estonia, studied Jacob Westholm´s Grammar school, Kross attended the University of Tartu (1938–1945) and graduated from its School of Law. He taught there as a lecturer until 1946, and again as Professor of Artes Liberales in 1998.

Kross was first arrested by the Germans for six months in 1944, and then by the Soviet occupation authorities in 1946, who deported him to a Gulag camp in Russia. Upon his return from Siberia to Estonia in 1954 he became a professional writer.

Career[link]

Recognition[link]

Kross is by far the most translated and nationally and internationally best-known Estonian writer. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was named a People's Writer of the Estonian SSR (1985); he received the State Prize of the Estonian SSR (1977). He also held several honorary doctorates and international decorations, including the highest Estonian order and one of the highest German orders.

In 1990 Kross won the Amnesty International Golden Flame Prize.^[2]

Style[link]

Kross' novels and short stories are almost universally historical; indeed, he is often credited with a significant rejuvenation of the genre of the historical novel. Most of his works take place in Estonia and deal, usually, with the relationship of Estonians and Baltic Germans and Russians. Very often, Kross' description of the historical struggle of the Estonians against the Baltic Germans is actually a metaphor for the contemporary struggle against the Soviet occupation. However, Kross' acclaim internationally (and nationally even after the regaining of Estonian independence) show that his novels also deal with topics beyond such concerns; rather, they deal with questions of mixed identities, loyalty, and belonging.

Generally, The Czar's Madman has been considered Kross' best novel; it is also the most translated one. Also well-translated is Professor Martens' Departure, which because of its subject matter (academics, expertise, and national loyalty) is very popular in academe and an important "professorial novel". The earlier Excavations, dealing with the thaw period after Stalin's death as well as with the Danish conquest of Estonia in the Middle Ages, and today considered by several critics as his finest, has not been translated into English yet; it is however available in German.

Death[link]

Jaan Kross died in Tallinn, at the age of 87, on 27 December 2007. He was survived by his wife Ellen Niit and four children. The President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, praised Kross "as a preserver of the Estonian language and culture." ^[2]

Kross is buried at the Rahumäe cemetery in Tallinn.^[3]

Quotes[link]

• "He was one of those who kept fresh the spirits of the people and made us ready to take the opportunity of restoring Estonia's independence." — Toomas Hendrik Ilves^[2]

Works by Jaan Kross[link]

• Kolme katku vahel (Between Three Plagues), 1970
• Keisri hull (The Czar's Madman), 1978
• Professor Martensi ärasõit (Professor Martens' Departure), 1984
• Vastutuulelaev (The Wind Ship/Sailing Against the Wind), 1987
• Wikmani poisid (The Wikman Boys), 1988
• Väljakaevamised (Excavations), 1990
• Tabamatus (Elusiveness), 1993
• Mesmeri ring (Mesmer's Circle), 1995
• Vandenõu (The Conspiracy and Other Stories), 1995
• Tahtamaa, 2001
• Paigallend (Treading Air), 2002
• Kallid kaasteelised (Dear Co-travellers), 2003
• Omaeluloolisus ja alltekst (Autobiographism and Subtext), 2003

References[link]

External links[link]

• Review of the life and works of Jaan Kross