Russian Guilty of Spying for Seoul Gets 12 Years
A former Russian diplomat has been sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony after being found guilty of spying for South Korea, the Federal Security Service said Thursday.
Valentin Moiseyev had served as deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s First Asian Department. The department deals with North and South Korea, as well as with China and Mongolia.
Moiseyev was convicted of providing Russian state secrets to the South Korean intelligence service, the Interfax news agency said.
He was arrested in July 1998 and charged with treason for passing classified materials to a South Korean diplomat in Moscow.
Russia expelled his alleged South Korean Embassy contact, Cho Sung Woo, and Seoul retaliated days later by kicking out a Russian Embassy official.
The embassy official was later allowed to return after Foreign Minister Park Jung Soo held talks with then-Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov.
Before his appointment to the Foreign Ministry, Moiseyev worked as a Russian newspaper correspondent in North Korea and then as a trade mission employee.
His lawyer, Yuri Gervis, said Moiseyev would appeal, Interfax said.
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