A special state security court in Hamburg on Monday began hearing illegal export charges against a Bavarian businessman and an associate. German prosecutors allege the accused sold machines veiled as "dual use" tools to two Russian arms firms in Yekaterinburg.

The goods, valued at €8 million ($9.7 million), were allegedly labeled for civilian, not military, use.

After Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, the EU instituted sanctions and embargo lists, prohibiting such sales to the Russian firms.

Court documents cited by the German news agency dpa named the recipients as OKB Nowator and its parent company Almas-Antei.

The charges before the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court also include negotiating with a secret service of a foreign power.

In custody since January

Heading the machine export firm based in Germany's southern state of Bavaria was its sole proprietor, a 41-year-old German who was arrested last February and since kept in custody.

Prosecutors allege that the second German accused, aged 40 and briefly detained in Munich in June, worked as the firm's sales representative in Russia and received commissions totaling €270,000.

Replying for the Augsburg businessman, three lawyers accused German federal prosecutors of being biased in their investigations and failing to consider exonerative emails and minutes from telephone surveillance.

The trial is scheduled to be spread over 15 days until February 2021.

ipj/rt (AFP, dpa)