Protests over verdict in Russian spy trial

RUSSIA: Russian scientist Igor Sutyagin faces the prospect of 17 years in jail for spying for the West after a trial which his lawyers and rights groups say was fixed.

Prosecutors demanded the sentence yesterday after Mr Sutyagin was found guilty of passing military secrets to a British firm which was allegedly acting as a front for the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr Sutyagin, who worked with the respected USA-Canada Institute, was deemed to have handed classified documents on fighter jets and nuclear submarines to the Alternative Futures company.

But his lawyer, Ms Anna Stavitskaya, says that the trial judge prejudiced the jury's decision by failing to ask them to consider whether the information was actually classified. She argues that it was all already in the public domain.

"The judge simply did not include the main issue - whether the information was secret or not," Ms Stavitskaya said, adding that she feared that Mr Sutyagin would indeed be jailed for 15 to 17 years. Sentence is due to be passed today.

Mr Sutyagin was arrested in 1999 and repeatedly denied bail. His trial was halted in December 2001 so that prosecutors and the intelligence services could gather more evidence.

Rights groups have noted a sharp increase in espionage cases since former KGB spy Vladimir Putin became president in 2000. They also hold out little hope for leniency in Mr Sutyagin's case after the FSB domestic intelligence agency, a successor to the KGB, reacted furiously to the acquittal last December of Mr Valentin Danilov, a scientist accused of spying for China.

Mr Alexander Petrov, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, said that Mr Sutyagin's trial appeared to have been "ordered at the behest of someone, namely the FSB, badly burned by the Danilov case". He added: "The FSB is doing everything to ensure this doesn't happen with Sutyagin."

A former FSB general, the leader of Russia's southern Ingushetia region,Mr Murat Zyazikov, survived an alleged suicide car-bombing yesterday.

An ally of Mr Putin, Mr Zyazikov was lightly injured after an explosive-laden vehicle rammed his convoy. Several bodyguards were seriously injured in the blast, which officials suggested could be the work of rebels from nearby Chechnya.