A Russian researcher has said he has been charged by security agencies for allegedly selling state secrets, making him the latest scientist arrested by law enforcement authorities on those charges.
Prosecutors also charged Oscar Kaibyshev, 66, with illegally exporting dual-use technologies, or techniques, machinery, equipment or software that can be used both for civilian and military purposes, said Yuri Gervis, the scientist's lawyer. That charge involves a Korean company, Kaibyshev said.
Kaibyshev could be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges, Gervis said.
Kaibyshev said he has been prohibited from traveling outside his home city of Ufa, about 750 miles east of Moscow, since last month and was suspended from his post as director of the Institute for Metal Superplasticity Problems.
"They've been going after the terrorists. Now they're going after the scientists," he said.
A growing number of academics have been targeted by the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the KGB, for alleged espionage or misuse of classified information. Human rights advocates have said the security agency is deeply suspicious of Russian scientists' contacts with foreigners, and it has been emboldened by the rise of former director Vladimir Putin to the presidency.
AP