Russia releases scientist accused of being a "Chinese spy"

Russia on November 24 released a physicist sentenced to 13 years in prison for spying for China, despite his repeated claims that information about his actions was no longer classified.

Accordingly, scientist Valentin Danilov was released early from prison number 17 in Krasnoyarsk city, Siberia, with 3 years left to serve his sentence.

Scientist Valentin Danilov (Source: AFP)

Danilov was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2004, before the sentence was reduced to 13 years, for spying for China and embezzling 466,000 rubles ($15,000) from a state university to fund his work.

Criminal charges against Danilov were brought during Vladimir Putin's first term as president. After his release, Danilov said he hoped to return to scientific work and would return to the town of Akademgorodok, outside Siberia's largest city Novosibirsk, with his wife and children. He also vowed to clear his name and take the case to the European Court of Human Rights. "I have not yet been told what secret documents I possessed," Danilov told RIA Novosti news agency.

Danilov, a former director of the thermophysics research centre at Krasnoyarsk State University, was charged with selling state secrets to a Chinese engineering company. His legal proceedings were controversial and he was initially cleared by a judge in 2003. However, the lower court’s ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court and he was quickly sentenced to 14 years in prison.

The case centers on a contract he signed with a Chinese engineering firm in 1999 to build a device to simulate the effects of the space environment on satellites. Danilov has always said that the relevant research was declassified by Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was widely disseminated.

Several leading Russian scientists also spoke out in defense of Danilov, saying he did not pass on any state secrets and that post-Soviet scientists had to do the same to make a living.

After his release, Danilov joked that he still wanted to do scientific research, but would stay away from the space industry. "I will do scientific research, but not in the space field because (in Russia) doing anything related to space is considered a state secret," he said./.

According to (Vietnam+)-LT