The Greek government has arrested two employees of
ArmA developer
Bohemia Interactive, accusing them of espionage.
This accusation has been based on some photographs they were taking of a Greek air base during their research for the development of
ArmA III.
This has been confirmed by Mark Spanel, head of
Bohemia Interactive, on the
game's official forums.
"This is true.
We prefer this topic not to be discussed on our forums atm, at least until we know more specific details about the case so I am going to close this topic and our moderators are going to close any related dicussion here, thank you for understanding."
First reports about this situation were posted first on a Greek outlet
News237 stating that two Czech men were found with photographs and even videos of the military facilities in Lemnos and Agios Efstratios.
Back in August, a Greek fan warned the developers about this kind of actions stating on their
forums that it was illegal to take photographs of the base in Limnos, as they were creating a 3D model of said military facility on their
Bohemia Interactive's CEO -Marek Spanel- has stated:
"We can confirm that two Bohemia Interactive employees, our colleagues and friends, were arrested during their holiday trip to Lemnos. They visited the island with the sole purpose of experiencing the island's beautiful surroundings.
Since its establishment in 1999, Bohemia Interactive has created games based only upon publicly available information. We always respect the law and we've never instructed anybody to violate the laws of any country. The same is true for Arma 3.
Currently, all our effort goes towards supporting the guys over there, as well as their friends and families affected by this difficult situation. We sincerely hope that this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of their passion as artists and creators of virtual worlds."
This situation isn't the first in which Greek authorities have had to deal with, as back in 2001 they held 12 British planes, as they accused them of spying because these planes were taking photographs at an air-show near Kalamata; the case ended up with 8 of this 12 planes receiving a three year sentence for espionage, while the other 4 were convicted of aiding and abetting.
It is said that this Greek area is the main location for the upcoming title
ArmA III, scheduled to be released on 2013.
