Russian Spy for Britain Gets 11 Years
A Moscow court sentenced a former junior Russian diplomat to 11 years in prison Thursday for spying for Britain, a court spokeswoman said, ending a case that had triggered the biggest spy dispute between London and Moscow since the Cold War.
Platon Obukhov, the son of a former deputy foreign minister and top arms control negotiator, worked in the prestigious North America section of the Foreign Ministry before his arrest in 1996.
Obukhov’s lawyer said she would appeal the Moscow city court’s verdict and suggested that his parents could take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
Moscow expelled four British diplomats over the affair, and London responded by expelling four Russians. It was the worst spying dispute between the countries since 1989, when each sent home 11 diplomats.
Months after his arrest, Obukhov gave a jail-cell interview to Russia’s NTV television in which he described his anxiety when he was allegedly working as a spy.
“Before and after each contact, I vomited--I could not eat,” he said.
Obukhov’s father, Alexei, played a key role in negotiating the 1987 U.S.-Soviet agreement scrapping medium-range nuclear missiles.
The British Embassy, which said it was aware of the trial’s outcome, declined comment.
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