Russian ‘spy’ breaks silence, wants to leave UK for Russia

Igor Sutyagin

Igor Sutyagin

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
One of the four Russian alleged spies that were handed over to the West in return for 11 Russian intelligence officers arrested in the US last month, has issued a public statement for the first time since his July 9 release from prison. At the time of his release, Dr. Igor Sutyagin, a nuclear expert who headed the Russian Academy of Sciences’ USA and Canada Institute, had served 11 years of a 15-year sentence, for allegedly passing state secrets to Alternative Futures, a British company alleged to be a CIA front by the Russian government. Once Washington included his name on the top-secret exchange list, Sutyagin was transferred from his prison cell in Kholmogory prison, near Arkhangelsk in northern Russia, to the Lefortovo high-security jail in Moscow. It was there that, following a meeting with this family, he was told that he would receive a Presidential pardon in exchange for his unconditional admission of guilt. Minutes after he agreed to the deal, the Russian scientist was flown to London, still in his prison uniform. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #394 (Russia-US spy swap edition III)

  • Russian spy’s call to father triggered arrests. A telephone call from Russian spy Anna Chapman to her father in Moscow led US counterintelligence services to hasten the arrests of her and nine Russian agents in the United States, claims The Washington Post.
  • Non-Russian spy Pelaez to return to Peru in month. Vicky Pelaez, a journalist with dual US-Peruvian citizenship, who was deported from the United States to Russia on a spy swap, will return to Peru no sooner than in a month, Pelaez’s lawyer, Carlos Moreno, said on Monday.
  • Alleged CIA spy Sutyagin may return to Russia. Igor Sutyagin, a Russian arms expert convicted of espionage in 2004, may return home after he was deported to England in a spy swap with the US, according to his former colleague Pavel Podvig. “He has Russian citizenship, his wife and daughters are in Russia and he has been pardoned by the President”, said Podvig.

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