Call for Retrial

MOSCOW (AP) -- Five prominent human rights groups have called for a retrial for Igor Sutyagin, an arms control researcher who was convicted of espionage, and said the prisoner, meanwhile, should be freed.

Sutyagin was arrested in 1999 on charges he sold information on nuclear submarines and missile warning systems to a British company that Russian investigators claimed was a CIA cover. In April, a jury sentenced Sutyagin to 15 years in prison.

The five groups -- Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the Public Committee for the Protection of Scientists and the Moscow Helsinki Group -- said Sutyagin had not gotten a fair trial.