Russia frees physicist convicted of spying for China
Russia released a physicist who spent eight years in a Siberian prison on charges of spying for China in what supporters maintain was a wrongful conviction motivated by Soviet-style paranoia.
Russia on Saturday released a physicist who spent eight years in a Siberian prison on charges of spying for China in what supporters maintain was a wrongful conviction motivated by Soviet-style paranoia.
Professor Valentin Danilov was released before dawn from prison No 17 in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, in an early release with over three years of his original sentence remaining, Russian news agencies said.
Danilov, 66, was first arrested in 2001 and sentenced in 2004 to 14 years in prison – later reduced to 13 years – for spying for China and embezzling 466,000 rubles (HK$115,000) from a state university to assist his work.
The criminal case against him was opened at the start of ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin’s first Kremlin term, and for many represented a return to the paranoid hunts for traitors in Soviet times.
After his release, Danilov said he hoped to return to science and that he would move back to the research town of Akademgorodok outside Siberia’s biggest city Novosibirsk to live with his wife.
“Being a scientist is my way of life. Otherwise what am I for? My head cannot think otherwise,” he told a news conference in Krasnoyarsk, excerpts of which were shown on state television.
