Russia's Spy Trials
The Washington Post, Editorial
Wednesday, March 14, 2001; Page A24
IF THE government of Vladimir Putin is to be believed, Russia is suffering from an epidemic of treasonous spying by its citizens. Two closed espionage trials, of a veteran diplomat and an academic researcher, are underway; charges against at least a half-dozen others are pending. That, says the Federal Security Service, or FSB -- successor agency to the Soviet KGB -- is just the tip of the iceberg: Its annual report said it had tracked 350 Russians working for foreign intelligence agencies.
Many Russians are alarmed by this news, but it's not because of the presumed loss of state secrets. What is really scary about Mr. Putin's espionage campaign is that the people on trial are distinguished mainstream academics, researchers, journalists and diplomats -- and the charges against them are transparently trumped up. The cases being brought in the closed courtrooms are so lacking in evidence and so far-fetched in their suppositions that at least three of them have been thrown out by Russian appeals courts. But that has not discouraged the FSB, which Mr. Putin, a career agent, took charge of in 1998 before ascending to the presidency. In each instance, the agency has responded to the verdict by opening a new case against its target.
Take the example of Valentin Moiseev, a career Russian diplomat charged with spying for South Korea, who is currently on trial in Moscow -- for the third time. Mr. Moiseev has been imprisoned since July 1998 when he was arrested by the FSB and accused of passing secret documents to a South Korean diplomat. The secret document offered in evidence turned out to be a copy of a speech Mr. Moiseev, an expert on Korea, had delivered publicly. But no matter: He was convicted in December 1999, after a closed trial that began several several months after Mr. Putin had publicly declared that the case "was proven beyond a doubt."
Last July the Russian Supreme Court overturned the conviction because of a lack of evidence. A second trial began in October, but at its conclusion two months later the judge withdrew without issuing a verdict -- perhaps because she did not wish to contradict Mr. Putin's judgment. And so a third trial is now underway. The FSB has no more evidence now than before that Mr. Moiseev is guilty. But according to his attorneys, the agency has a new tactic: It is threatening to bring charges against Mr. Moiseev's daughter, who is a student in South Korea.
The other trial now underway is of Igor Sutyagin, a 36-year-old researcher at the prestigious Institute for the Study of the United States and Canada. Mr. Sutyagin was arrested in October 1999 and has been jailed ever since. The FSB reportedly has charged during his closed trial this month that reports that Mr. Sutyagin provided as a consultant to foreign business groups amounted to espionage. But Mr. Sutyagin and numerous colleagues have testified that he had no access to secret information but rather compiled his reports from public sources.
The numbers and brazenness of the spy cases have been mounting for several years. One of the first to be charged was a journalist in the port city of Vladivostok, Grigory Pasko, who was arrested in 1997. Later, a distinguished scientist, Vladimir Soifer, was also charged with spying -- one of three academics at the Pacific Oceanographic Institute in Vladivostok to be arrested in the past four years. The crime of both Mr. Pasko and Mr. Soifer was to publish details about radioactive contamination of the Bay of Chazma and Sea of Japan by the Russian military. The charges against Mr. Pasko were thrown out after a long legal battle -- but the FSB recently renewed them. In Mr. Soifer's case, the agency declared him guilty and granted him a pardon without bothering to have a trial. When Mr. Soifer had the pardon nullified by a court, the agency -- of course -- opened a new case.
The weakness of all these cases appears not to trouble the FSB or Mr. Putin. In fact, the legal stretch is central to the political message. "If Sutyagin is guilty of compromising state secrets," says the veteran Russian human rights activist Sergei Grigoryants, "then any of his colleagues could also be accused -- or any other independent academic who criticizes the government or has contact with foreigners." The signal of Russia's spy trials is that once again the Kremlin leadership is inclining toward rule by means of secret police, rather than by parliament, elections or law. Mr. Putin no doubt hopes that the prosecutions of Mr. Moiseev and Mr. Sutyagin will send that notice to the journalists and intellectuals who might oppose him. If not, the FSB has those 350 additional spies already identified.
