In 2021, the Security Police Board, under the direction of the State Prosecutor's Office, initiated criminal proceedings to determine whether the requirements for handling state secrets had been violated in e-mail correspondence between agencies. The correspondence concerned information related to an exercise organized by the Government Office and the Ministry of Defense at the level of the Government of the Republic.

The investigation was initiated after the Government Office notified the Security Police of a possible violation.

Helen Uldrich, head of the public relations department of the State Prosecutor's Office, told ERR that no charges were brought against anyone during the criminal proceedings, and that the investigation focused on whether the agency that possessed the information considered it to contain state secrets or not.

"The information related to the exercise in question contained information from several different agencies, so each agency had to evaluate this information, and do so jointly. The information was forwarded to the investigating authorities at different times, and the necessary actions were taken based on the information received," Uldrich said.

"To date, both the Security Police and the State Prosecutor's Office have gathered sufficient evidence to terminate the proceedings without bringing charges against any of the defendants. In other words, no violations of state secrecy requirements were identified on the basis of the evidence gathered," Uldrich said.

On May 12 this year, security expert and former government official Meelis Oidsalu wrote on social media about the criminal proceedings initiated against him in 2021. At the time, he was working as deputy secretary general at the Ministry of Defense.

"Even though the Government Office filed a criminal complaint against me in the fall of 2021 and the Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case, I have not received any notification from the state that a criminal case was opened, nor have I ever been interviewed or otherwise directly informed by the Prosecutor's Office that a criminal case was opened. Nor has any suspicion been raised," Oidsalu wrote.

At that time, the Prosecutor's Office did not wish to provide any comments on the situation to ERR.

Oidsalu told ERR on Thursday that he first wants to review the order to close the criminal case before deciding whether to comment further on the matter.

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