Delisle’s four years of spying on Canada for Russia lacked value: envoy

OTTAWA – Russia’s departing Canadian ambassador says his country learned nothing of value from a junior navy officer who spent four years passing them classified secrets.

Georgiy Mamedov tells The Canadian Press he never took disgraced Canadian Jeffrey Delisle seriously when he started selling Western military secrets to Russia in 2007.

Delisle, 43, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year after pleading guilty to regularly passing classified western intelligence to Russia in exchange for cash.

He wasn’t caught until 2011 when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation tipped off the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s spy agency.

Mamedov says Russian spies are more focused on other countries, not Canada.

Mamedov is retiring from the Russian foreign service and is leaving Ottawa after 11 years in the post.