"BMI is a swingers' club"

Egisto Ott’s bizarre “letter of rage” to Karl Nehammer

The alleged double agent Egisto Ott wrote a bizarre letter to the then Minister of the Interior and current Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) in May 2020.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/APA/Herbert Neubauer, zVg)

"I'm done" - with the famous words of soccer coach Giovanni Trapattoni, suspected Russian spy Egisto Ott, who was in custody, began a letter to the then Interior Minister Karl Nehammer in 2020. The "Krone" knows what else is in the bizarre and still secret document.

According to the dictionary, an open letter is a "letter published in the press to a prominent person or institution in which a problem concerning the general public is raised, criticism is expressed or similar". However, not all open letters actually find their way to the public quickly. This is also the case with a previously unknown letter from suspected Russian spy and former constitutional protector Egisto Ott from May 2020.

Ministry as a "swingers' club"
The recipient of the emailed letter is Ott's former superior, Interior Minister and current ÖVP Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The ÖVP had "created a swingers' club out of the Ministry of the Interior", Ott writes in the letter, which contains bizarre accusations, is available to "Krone" and which the high-ranking police officer begins with the famous quote from former Italian soccer coach Giovanni Trapattoni: "I'm finished."

"Danger to life and limb"
But first things first: Who is Egisto Ott and why is he in custody? Ott was arrested on Good Friday at his home in Carinthia. He was then placed in solitary confinement - partly for security reasons. Due to "danger to life and limb", even his questioning in the U Committee had to be canceled on the advice of the authorities.

The former high-ranking police officer is accused of making illegal inquiries as an agent of the BVT, selling the cell phones of three former high-ranking employees of the Ministry of the Interior and spying for Russia. Ott is also considered to be one of the alleged authors of the pamphlet that became famous, which in turn led to the house search at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), which was later found to be unlawful.

Ott is presumed innocent. He himself denies all allegations. "It's an absurd construct, the evidence is more than thin. He is being made a scapegoat here," Ott's lawyer Jürgen Stephan Mertens told the media. However, Ott himself liked to make others the scapegoat during his police career, sometimes in bizarre ways. This can be seen in black and white in the open letter, which is available to the "Krone" and was provided in the course of the sub-committee files.