Moscow court jails Russia-born US citizen for 'espionage'

Moscow City Court on Tuesday sentenced former business executive Gene Spector to "15 years to be served in a strict-regime penal colony" over alleged spying charges, the details of which are largely unknown.

Russia has handed down hefty prison sentences to several US citizens and dual-nationals in recent years, with Washington accusing Moscow of "hostage diplomacy."

What do we know about the case?

US citizen Spector was already serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence in Russia for bribery and was arrested and charged with espionage last August.

Details of the spying accusations have not been made public by Russia's state media.

According to the TASS news agency, Spector was given a 13-year jail sentence over the espionage charges — to be added to his sentence.

TASS said the presiding judge had decided he should now serve a combined sentence of 15 years in a maximum security penal colony.

Except for the sentencing, the trial took place behind closed doors because of its purportedly secret nature.

Who is Gene Spector?

Spector was born in 1972 in the then city of Leningrad — his Russian name being Yevgeny Mironovich, TASS said.

He moved to the US where he became naturalized, and later moved back to his renamed birth city of Saint Petersburg. He is married with children.

Spector was detained in 2020 and sentenced to four years in prison for acting as an intermediary in bribery the following year, having pleaded guilty.

That sentence was later cut by six months following a retrial in the case, which concerned luxury holidays for an aide of former deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich.

Before his conviction, Spector had been the general director of Russia's Medpolimerprom medical equipment company.

Russia's 'hostage diplomacy'

The US has accused Russia of resorting to "hostage diplomacy" with Moscow having detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and another US citizen, Paul Whelan, on espionage charges.

They were among 16 prisoners that Russia and its ally Belarus released in an August swap, with most of those who Russia handed over imprisoned on charges widely viewed as politically motivated.

rc/rm (AFP, Reuters)