Munich  - A former executive at Eurocopter, the helicopter manufacturing company in the EADS group, went on trial in Germany Monday for selling documents about the aircraft to Russian spies.

The engineer, 44, said he was "flabbergasted" at being charged with espionage, as he thought most of the helicopters involved had been cleared for export to Russia and he was not selling classified information.

Prosecutors said he used anonymous webmail accounts, the modern equivalent of the old-fashioned spy's dead drop, to arrange meetings to pass over technical data, manuals and other documents about helicopters to an agent of the SVR foreign-intelligence service.

Away from the court, a spokesman for European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co (EADS) said, "According to what we know currently, the company was not harmed in any way." The data had not been classified.

Prosecutors say the data about civilian helicopters might however have given Russia an advantage in dealing with military versions of the same aircraft. The defendant was he was astonished at his arrest in April 2007.

Defence lawyers told the trial that the defendant had been paid 13,000 euros by the SVR, the successor to the KGB, for what were essentially just manuals.

The defendant, who joined the Franco-German helicopter company in 1992, no longer works for Eurocopter and runs his own engineering consultancy. He said he had been in debt and hoped the SVR man would help him gain business. (dpa)