Igor Sutyagin, a scholar at Moscow’s Institute of USA and Canada Studies (ISKRAN), has been convicted on trumped-up espionage charges.
Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (the old KGB) has alleged he sold unclassified information about nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a CIA front company. The Washington Post points out the trial was hardly fair:
After Sutyagin’s case went to trial and a jury was selected in November, the trial was abruptly suspended. Then in February, the presiding judge was removed without explanation and the jury was dismissed. Komarova, who has handled other cases brought by the FSB, was named the new judge.
“They were looking for a judge who would be able to manipulate everyone, including the jury,” said Vasiltsov, the defense attorney.
Vasiltsov said the judge refused to allow expert testimony intended to show that the information Sutyagin passed along was not secret and instructed the jury to vote solely on whether the defendant provided information to the British, not on whether the data were sensitive or harmful.
If you have any doubts that the trial was a sham, read what the Amnesty International, American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights have to say about it.
I was just at ISKRAN, in November, to deliver a talk (in part) about the leaked, yet still classified Nuclear Posture Review. Everyone in the arms control field is one overzealous security agency away from a time-share in Gitmo.