Today the Russian Supreme Court upheld a sentence the Moscow City Court earlier handed down on Russian researcher Igor Sutyagin, who was found guilty of espionage. (17-AUG-04)
The Moscow City Court on April 7 sentenced Sutyagin to 15 years in prison. The
court ruled that his term be counted from the date of his detention in Obninsk
in the Kaluga region on October 29, 1999.
Sutyagin s lawyer, Boris Kuznetsov, said that he intended to appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights. He added that the court of jury that had found
the scientist guilty had been formed with a violation of criminal procedure. One
of the jurors was simultaneously a candidate to the court of jury of the Moscow
district military court, Kuznetsov said. However, Prosecutor General s Office
spokesman Yevgeny Naidyonov said that this argument had been rejected by the
Supreme Court as groundless.
Read more about the Sutyagin case in the Human Rights Watch report .
