Russian colonel jailed for spying

BBC News Online ^ | June 11 2003

[knighthawk]

A former Russian intelligence officer has been sentenced to 18 years' hard labour for treason and espionage. Colonel Alexander Zaporozhsky, 52, was found guilty of passing information about Russian overseas intelligence activities to foreign governments for five years.

He was also suspected of revealing the identities of more than 20 Russian US-based spies.

Since his retirement in 1997, Mr Zaporozhsky had been working for an American company in the state of Maryland, but he was arrested in Moscow in 2001.

The court gave Mr Zaporozhsky a tougher sentence than the 16 years demanded by prosecutors.

'Secrets to CIA'

He was also stripped of the rank of colonel and of several medals he received as a senior officer in the intelligence services.

"The official version is that he was spying for a number of foreign governments," Yevgeny Komissarov, the head of the prosecutor's press service, told Reuters news agency.

However, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said Mr Zaporozhsky had passed on secrets to the CIA.

There have been several spy cases in the US and Russia in recent years, with Washington expelling more than 50 Russian diplomats.

And in February a Russian court gave university professor Anatoly Babkin an eight-year suspended sentence for passing on information to former US naval intelligence officer Edmund Pope.

Mr Pope was himself given a 20-year prison sentence in December 2000 but was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin because of ill health.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[TruthNtegrity]

Ahhh the Cold war, U spy, WE spy lives on.

Today our biggest spying takes place within corporate America, where they are trying to undermine our capitalism.

To tweak this subject, we really need to beef up our HUMINT so that we have better info on the nutcases in the ME. Satellite imagry can only do so much and look at the trouble it got us into with the WMD in Iraq.