Espionage-accused ArmA III developers denied appeal, will face trial
By Alice Lynton on November 17, 2012 at 10:45 am
Two Bohemia Interactive staffers accused of spying on military installations while visiting Greece have been denied appeal, according to European news reports translated by Eurogamer. The pair of ArmA 3 developers, Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar, have been held for 70 days, and were made to wait for an inordinate period before hearing the results of their appeal thanks to industrial action within the Greek legal system. Having lost their appeal, the two will stand trial, and are faced with the prospect of up to 20 years in jail.
Bohemia Interactive has stood staunchly by the pair, who insist they were merely on holiday. Conditions in the facility in which the pair are being held are allegedly pretty rough, with upwards of 20 prisoners in one room, forced to sleep on the floor. Buchta and Pezlar have reportedly lost their optimism as the weeks drag by.
Source: Eurogamer
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That’s pretty messed up, i firmly believe they were sent there by Bohemia to gather art assets for Arma 3. Then when shit went to hell, Bohemia backpedaled and denied any involvement.
Such a bullshit situation.
Couldn’t agree more. Greece has been a pretty big no go area for holidays since their near encounter with economic collapse and continued financial problems.
However the way Greece is acting about this is just too far and to me it’s just them acting all tough so they can prove a point to the rest of the world. I mean seriously what secrets could they possibly have that the rest of the major players in that region don’t already know about?
Compared to other nations in their region they are insignificant and you can find most if not all of their tech/buildings etc on google.
There is probably nothing there, as they have run out of money and do not want anyone to know they have nothing :P
Greece runs on a system of bribery (fakelaki) to speed things up, so I guess they did not pay the bribes.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/31/us-greece-corruption-idUSBRE86U1G220120731
I agree, it stretches credibility IMO that two developers who are working on a game featuring EXACTLY what they are accused of photographing and yet they claim that they were “just on holiday”… reeks of bullshit.
Of course that won’t stop people from blindly defending them against anything, but there’s obviously more going on there than “Greece is broke/whatever and that’s delaying it” like people are claiming.
+1 something ain’t quite right bohemia probably being dodgy
This was all covered in detail in the discussion from the last article, linked above
“Legal Opinion: Why the arrested ArmA developers should have known better”
The whole “how can they do this” argument really doesnt need rehashing all over again, when it was already answered.
The whole point of a secret is that other’s don’t know. And saying ‘oh, I can google all of this stuff anyway’ is both hugely inaccurate and ingnorant to say in the first place. The fact remains that what they did was illegal and they are being prosecuted for it. It’s unfortunate and they probably didn’t have any ill intent, but it doesn’t change anything.
I cant see how the devs decided to see real world assets of the game they’re making in their own time.
They will and should be found innocent and be released if not, then its just fucked and greece should be nuked from orbit.
Why on earth would you think it would be a good idea to photograph a military base at all.
fryziedelta,
I agree. It is very unfortunate but it should come as common sense not to photograph military installations, especially in Greece at a time like this. That said, it would have to suck to be put in jail for 20 years for trying to gather pictures to help build a video game.
Don’t do that, nuke Greece and Germany are going to come knocking for their money :p
As if the Greeks have any military worth keeping secret anyway.
Apparently they missed the memo that the last time anyone cared about their military power was over 1000 years ago.
They knew they were doing the wrong thing.
Suck it up and admit your guilt. You’ll get a lesser punishment.
Prepare to put mustard on your words. It was recently discovered that Greece has over $1bn USD of oil that is completely un-tapped off its shores but currently Greece hasn’t got the money to extract that. So Greece ultimately need to avoid selling out before they can at least make their own money back and defend this oil which is vital to their economic future. Turkey have never been friendly with Greece and they are worried that Turkey will make a move.