Treason trial set for Russian hypersonic missile scientist
Anatoly Maslov, 76, and two colleagues from the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) are charged with treason.
The first of three Russian hypersonic missile scientists to be arrested on suspicion of treason will stand trial next week in a case sources say involves allegations of betraying secrets to China.
The criminal case against 76-year-old Anatoly Maslov will be opened on June 1 before the Saint Petersburg court, the court said on its website on Wednesday.
Maslov and two colleagues from the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) in Siberia were all arrested last year on suspicion of treason.
The three are specialists in hypersonics – an area critical to the development of Russia’s next-generation missiles, capable of flying at 10 times the speed of sound.
The case, which has been marked “top secret”, will be closed to the media and the public, the court said. The Kremlin previously said the suspects face “very serious charges,” though the details of their alleged crime are classified.
The news portal of the science city in Siberia where they were based said Maslov was suspected of passing secrets to China.
Two sources told Reuters that co-defendant Alexander Shiplyuk, the director of ITAM, is suspected of passing secrets to China at a conference there in 2017. They said he denies the charges and said the information in question was publicly available online.
ITAM has extensive international links and says on its website that it is registered as part of the Russian military-industrial complex.
Maslov — whose detention was extended to November 10 at a closed hearing on Wednesday — was arrested in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city, last June. Soon after, he was sent to Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, a former KGB interrogation site.
In St. Petersburg, he has been placed in the FSB security prison on Shalernaya Street, where many Soviet dissidents were once held by the KGB, Maslov’s lawyer Olga Dinze told Reuters.
She declined to comment further on the matter, saying “the situation is extremely difficult”.
Colleagues of Maslov and co-defendants Shiplyuk and the third arrested Valery Zvegintsev published an open letter last week warning that the prosecutions threaten to harm Russian science.
Last month, Russia’s parliament voted to raise the maximum sentence for treason to life imprisonment from 20 years.