VIENNA (AP) — A former Austrian interior minister and EU lawmaker accused of influence peddling pleaded innocent Monday, telling a court he suspected U.S. secret service agents had set him up and that he had played along to catch them red-handed.

On the first day of his trial, Ernst Strasser acknowledged he did not contact Austrian authorities about his suspicions until after he was exposed in April 2010 on camera by two journalists working for the U.K.’s Sunday Times newspaper.