Five spy suspects transferred amid signs of possible U.S.-Russia swap

[Elmore Furth]

Source: Washington Post

Five suspected Russian spies arrested last month were suddenly dispatched Wednesday to New York, where a federal indictment was unsealed amid signs that the U.S. and Russian governments were working out a deal to swap them and five others for detainees held in Russia.

In Moscow, a lawyer for Russian scientist Igor Sutyagin, who has spent 11 years in prison in Russia on espionage charges that he denies, told The Washington Post that her client was unexpectedly brought to the capital from a remote prison colony, issued a passport and informed that he was being included in an exchange for the Russians held in the United States.

In Alexandria, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rawles Jones Jr. abruptly canceled a pretrial hearing Wednesday morning for three Russian suspects arrested in Virginia. He signed orders directing that the trio be transported immediately to the Southern District of New York for unspecified further proceedings.

The suspects are Natalia Pereverzeva, who used the alias Patricia Mills; Mikhail Kutzik, alias Michael Zottoli; and Mikhail Semenko. A spokesman for federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia declined to elaborate.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070702201.html?wprss=rss_natio

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MOSCOW (Reuters) - In an espionage drama worthy of the Cold War, Russia wants a spy swap to repatriate suspected agents arrested in the United States last month, a lawyer involved in the affair said on Wednesday.

The plan includes exchanging a Russian nuclear expert jailed for passing secrets to the West. It adds a new twist to a cloak-and-dagger saga that both Moscow and Washington hope will not undermine improving diplomatic relations.

Russia wants to swap its national Igor Sutyagin, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2004 for passing classified military information to a British firm which prosecutors said was a front for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

"They want to exchange Sutyagin for one of those arrested in the United States for spying," Anna Stavitskaya, a lawyer acting for Sutyagin, told Reuters.



Russia Seeks Spy Swap to Free Agents In U.S.: Lawyer

[leveymg]

1. Now, that explains why the FBI suddenly busted this cell - a swap. How John LeCarre.

Smiley's people are still running the game. Continuity is almost reassuring.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Always satisfying to hear "the rest of the story".

[Soylent Brice]

3. K&R