#8 - JRL 7262
Lawyers Of Suspected Spy Sutyagin Demand Jury Trial

MOSCOW. July 21 (Interfax) - The lawyers representing Russian scientist Igor Sutyagin, who is charged with spying for the United States, have demanded a jury trial. "Only in that case can we hope for a fair court ruling. There is no doubt that a regular court will pass a guilty verdict on Sutyagin," lawyer Anna Stavitskaya said at a press conference in Moscow on Monday. Meanwhile, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said that Igor Sutyagin is the only Russian prosecuted on espionage charges over recent years who is still in custody. Sutyagin "had no access to classified information. He obtained all of the data from open sources," Alexeyeva stressed. The Federal Security Service accuses Sutyagin, head of the U.S. military, technical and economic policy department at the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies, of collecting and transferring information about new-generation nuclear submarines, the combat readiness of Russian nuclear arms and missile attack warning systems.