Russian Arms Control Expert and Political Prisoner, Igor Sutyagin - Information Briefing

What was the provocation - the previous year, Igor Sutyagin had attended a professional conference in London; the Russian FSB speculated he gave classified information to a British consulting company, Alternative Futures - FSB believes they are a front for the CIA.

Dr. Sutyagin readily admits he shared information with Alternative, but none of the material he passed on was classified, and all of it previously published by the public media. Sutyagin did not have a security clearance so that kind of material was never open to him. He is a physicist with a Ph.D. in History from Moscow University, and an expert on arms control. At the time of his arrest, he was a senior researcher for the prestigious Institute for United States and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he was the head of a section in the department of political-military research.

The exact charges were not made available and records held in secret, so it was unclear why Sutyagin was arrested. Originally, it appeared there might be some questions about one of his projects - a Canadian Defense Ministry survey at Carleton and York Universities - but there was nothing secret about the study, and it was even partially funded by the Russian Defense and Foreign Ministries - from an article by Amy Knight.

There was also the problem of an American graduate student from Princeton, Joshua Handler, who was a guest of the U.S.-Canada Institute. In the States, he had been an activist for Greenpeace and a researcher on arms control issues. Dr. Sutyagin was helping Handler with his thesis for his doctorate on strategic nuclear weapons; the student maintained that all his Russian information was gleaned from open sources. Handler’s Moscow apartment was searched and his laptop seized as evidence; of course with the fear factor, Handler felt relieved when he was able to return to the U.S. immediately.

Handler said his work, “…has sought to inform the public about important nuclear and environment problems, the need to reduce armaments and the desirability of good U.S.-Russian relations.”

The Director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, told Komsommolskaya Pravda, “During the preliminary investigation, it was ascertained that Sutyagin supplied to Handler secret information on the Russian armed forces, and the latter transferred it to the U.S. intelligence service.”

The Russians subsequently ruled Joshua Handler was not involved in any espionage in this case.

Igor Suyatgin’s trial opened Dec. 23, 2000. His attorney received the details of the charges only one week prior. By this time, Igor had been waiting in jail for 13 months; he was then 35 years old, with a wife and young family. In pre-trial documents, prosecutors accused Sutyagin of spying for the United States and using his position as a scholar to gain access to secrets from closed military bases. They claimed he was recruited by the Americans at the conference in Britain a year before his arrest. No final charges included any mention of Joshua Handler.

Sutyagin has written several magazine articles in Russian and contributed chapters to the book, “Strategic Nuclear Arms in Russia,” by Paval Podvig, published in Moscow in 1998, now of Stanford University. A pre-publication copy of the manuscript was submitted to the FSB months in advance, time enough for the agency to dispute any contentious material.

In his trial, no evidence was submitted claiming to be the information passed on to the West. The defense posed the question, “What is this high treason based on?” when no evidence was found in the search of Igor’s home, or his computer, nor in materials belonging to Mr. Handler.

“The FSB considers that by publishing a book about nuclear disarmament, Mr. (Dr.) Sutyagin disseminated ‘secret information,’” from the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library ….without regard or mention of the actual content of the book, and without concern that the book had been submitted to the FSB in pre-production state. The primary author of the book, Paval Podvig, was not arrested.

Sutyagin’s trial began Dec. 23, 2000, in a regional court in Kaluga. One of Igor’s lawyers, Vladimir Vasilsov, said that the final charges center on the consulting firm in Britain. Igor gave them “digests” from the Russian press. Another lawyer Boris Kuznetsov said the firm advises “potential investors about Russian industries.” The FSB made no attempt to contact the company.Vasiltsov stated, “…the charges say Sutyagin analyzed information from open sources for use against Russia, but investigators did not provide evidence the British consulting agency, nor any other foreigners (Igor contacted) were working against Russia.”

The case was to be held in a closed courtroom - if any of the evidence is classified then the entire proceedings are classified. “The FSB can add its own internal documents to a case in order to classify it,” this Kuznetsov claimed was a tactic used with Sutyagin’s case.

After several postponements, the court ruled that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence. Rather than an acquittal, the case was sent back for further investigation. At that time, Russian legal code did allow for this kind of double jeopardy. It has been suggested that such harsh treatment of Igor Sutyatgin is retribution for two earlier espionage acquittals for Alexandr Nititin and Grigory Pasko.

Sutyagin’s defense team was hopeful when the trial was transferred to Moscow but it was not to be. According to Russian law, for high treason to be proved, it must be established that the defendant shows clear intent to harm the Russian state. This could not be established by the prosecution. Then the judges were changed.

The defense team mounted an appeal on procedural grounds. According to reports, there were many irregularities during the trial, “including a perceived bias by Judge Marina Komarova towards the prosecution.” The appeal was denied.

In November 2005, Sutyagin was transferred to a second penal colony, the dreaded Arkhangelsk - a place of extremely poor prisoner-conditions and rampant with tuberculosis. According to The Other Russia, “In May of 2006, the European Court for Human Rights formally challenged the Russian government on complaints from the scientist’s defense. Sutyagin has been labeled a political prisoner by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”

A second attempt at parole for Dr. Sutyagin was denied. Then in Feb. 2007, he was put into solitary confinement for 3 months because authorities claimed he was found to possess a cell phone. His attorney, Anna Stavitskaya, said this punishment was to apply pressure on him to confess, if he wanted to be released - Sutyagin refuses to confess to anything he didn't do. His family is devastated by this harsh treatment and hard labor; his mother told the press, “He could be benefiting Russia, not hauling wood shavings from the mill bench."...Dr. Sutyagin can't concentrate on his work. He must only try to stay alive; staying alive is his only reality now.  

“The result of this (the most recent appeal for a pardon) was revealed by the Public committee for the Protection of Scientists in Moscow on October 29^th, 2007,” eight years since his initial arrest. Now more than nine years and counting.