Eugene Spector, an American citizen born in Russia, was sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security Russian penal colony.
An American citizen sentenced to 15 years in prison this week was found guilty of leaking biotechnology secrets to the United States, Russia’s Federal Security Service said.
In a statement on Friday, the Federal Security Service accused Eugene Spector, who was born in Russia and then moved to the United States, of working on behalf of the Pentagon.
“The Americans, working for the Pentagon and a trade organization affiliated with it, collected and transferred to a foreign party various information on biotechnological and biomedical topics, including those constituting state secrets, for the subsequent creation by the United States of a system,” the Russian Federal Security Service said. High-speed genetic screening of the Russian population.
Details of the espionage case against Spector – who was already serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence in Russia for bribery – were sparse.
Russian official news agencies reported on Tuesday that Spector was sentenced to 13 years in prison on espionage charges.
This was added to the existing bribery penalty and converted to a new 15-year prison sentence in a maximum security penal colony.
The Federal Security Service, which usually determines whether a defendant has confessed, did not say how Spector pleaded in closed proceedings.
The US State Department said this week that it was aware of reports of the sentencing of an American citizen in Russia and was monitoring the situation.
The imprisonment of American citizens in Russia was a major point of contention between Washington and Moscow, with relations between the two countries strained due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In August, more than twenty people were released in a prisoner exchange deal that included citizens of several countries.
Among those released were Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan – two US citizens imprisoned in Russia.
