Arms control researcher gets 15 years for spying

A Moscow court sentenced Russian arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin yesterday to 15 years in prison for spying on behalf of the United States, a court official said.

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.

Sutyagin, maintaining his innocence, said that his case sets a necessary precedent. "The state needs spies," he said on NTV television.

Sutyagin's lawyer Boris Kuznetsov told the Associated Press that his client was not surprised by the sentence. "Before the trial, he was approached by FSB agents who made him the offer that if he pleaded guilty, he would be convicted, but released from prison based on the time he had already spent behind bars," Kuznetsov said.

Kuznetsov said the defence will appeal the sentence within 10 days, as prescribed by law. "We will appeal, because Sutyagin is innocent. Moreover, there were numerous violations of the criminal procedural code during the process." Among them Kuznetsov cited the undue change of jurors and using evidence which did not pertain to the case, but "which helped build up a certain atmosphere against Sutyagin."

Kuznetsov also said the judge had given the jury incorrect instructions by asking them to determine whether Sutyagin had passed along the information – which the defendant did not deny – rather than whether he had passed state secrets.