Russian gets 15 years for spying for US

A Moscow court today sentenced Russian arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin to 15 years in prison for spying for the United States.

Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow’s respected USA and Canada Institute, was jailed in October 1999 on charges he sold information on nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a British company that Russian investigators claimed was a CIA cover.

Sutyagin, who was convicted of treason in the form of espionage by a jury on Monday, maintained that the analyses he wrote were based on open sources and that he had no reason to believe the British company was an intelligence cover.

The Moscow City Court sentenced Sutyagin to 15 years in a maximum-security prison and ruled that his prison term be counted from the moment of his detention.

“I absolutely do not consider myself guilty,” Sutyagin maintained after the sentencing, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

His lawyer German Gavryunin said “the defence categorically does not agree with the punishment” and will appeal the sentence in the Supreme Court, according to ITAR-Tass.

Human rights advocates say the case demonstrates the renewed grip of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB’s main successor, which is deeply suspicious of Russian scientists’ contacts with foreigners.

They say its agents have been emboldened by the rise of ex-KGB agent and FSB director Vladimir Putin to the presidency.

In only a few cases have courts challenged such cases. In December, a jury acquitted Valentin Danilov, a professor at Krasnoyarsk Technical University in Siberia, who had been charged with selling classified information on space technology to China and misappropriating university funds.