The court’s decision will be appealed by Sutyagin and his lawyers, Newsru.com reports.
As BarentsObserver has reported, Igor Sutyagin was in 2004 sentenced to 15 years of prison for his alleged espionage for US authorities. Sutyagin worked as a researcher at the Institute for United States and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow. He was a specialist on Russian arms control and nuclear weapons.
He had been imprisoned in October 1999 after having handed over allegedly classified information to a group of British researchers. Sutyagin and his supporters however argue that the information was openly available in public sources.
Since 2005, Sutyagin has been behind bars in a prison colony in Arkhangelsk Oblast.
In May 2007, Sutyagin asked then President Vladimir Putin for pardon. That request was however turned down by a presidential commission. In April 2008, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe called on the Russian authorities to “use all available legal means” to release Igor Sutyagin.
As BarentsObserver reported, the Sutyagin case is this year expected to be handled by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Read more about the Sutyagin case(external link).
