• Military
• WMD

• Intelligence Menu               

• Systems
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Imagery
• Links

• Homeland Security
• Space

Russian Court Rejects Appeal By Scientist Accused Of Spying

May 01, 2010

ARKHANGELSK, Russia -- A court in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk has rejected an appeal for the release of academic Igor Sutyagin, who is serving a 15-year sentence for espionage, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.

Sutyagin, the former head of a division in the Russian Academy of Sciences' USA and Canada Institute, was sentenced in 2004 after being found guilty of passing state secrets to foreign officials.

Sutyagin, 45, denies the charges and in 2007 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe demanded his immediate release.

Amnesty International has named Sutyagin a prisoner of conscience.

The court rejected an appeal for Sutyagin's release on the grounds that he had broken prison rules.

But his lawyer, Anna Stavitskaya, told Ekho Moskvy radio that when the appeal was heard in court Sutyagin had served all punitive sanctions for not following prison rules.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/Russian_Court_Rejects_ Appeal_By_Scientist_Accused_Of_Spying/2030021.html

Copyright (c) 2010. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.