MOSCOW, June 4 (RAPSI) - A man known by his alias, Andreas Anschlag, who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to six and half years in prison, was deported from Germany to Russia, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday.

Anschlag’s lawyer, Horst-Dieter Pötschke, said in December that his client could be released in the summer of 2015. “There is a clause in the German Code of Criminal Procedure (Paragraph 456а), under which imprisoned foreigners can file for deportation after serving half of their sentence,” the lawyer told Kommersant newspaper.

Anschlag’s spouse, known by the alias Heidrun Anschlag, who was sentenced to five and half years for espionage, was deported to Russia in 2014.

According to the case materials, Andreas and his wife Heidrun Anschlag arrived in Germany between 1988 and 1990, both sporting Eastern European accents and claiming to having been born in South America and raised in Austria. They were recruiting, schooling and managing other agents who worked in Germany and neighboring countries, the Berlin newspaper Die Welt reported earlier, adding that they were also passing sensitive information on EU and NATO plans collected by their agents to Moscow.

The defendants, whose true identities are unknown to German prosecutors or authorities, have not admitted that they were spies, nor has Russia, although the Russian authorities have been providing consular assistance to the couple during the trial that started last January.

The married couple was arrested in October 2011 on suspicion of operating as Russian spies in Germany for more than two decades. In July 2013, they were found guilty of espionage and sentenced by a regional court in Stuttgart.

Prosecutors had initially sought a sentence of seven and half years against Andreas, and four and half years against his wife, as well as a fine of 500,000 euros to compensate for illegal earnings, and the surrender of 35 million euros worth of property, which was seized during the course of the investigation.

The couple's most high-profile recruit to be publicly identified was Dutch diplomat Raymond Poeteray, who was detained in April 2012. Poeteray, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a Dutch court in April 2013, allegedly received 90,000 euros for passing confidential information to Russia.

Prosecutors say the “secret” files were delivered via dead letter drops to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service in Moscow, after which the Anschlags apparently received further commands through an agent radio network.

Horst-Dieter Pötschke refuted the rumor published by the German magazine Der Spiegel that Russia had paid 500,000 euros for Heidrun’s early release.