Where will Grigori Pasko, being accused of espionage, celebrate the New Year?

This Tuesday, Commander Grigori Pasko, accused of espionage and high treason, appeared at the trial with his last words. After having hearing him out, the judges left the hall for a debate. The sentence will be announced on December 25. Last week, Public Prosecutor Alexandr Kondakov demanded that the journalist be sentenced to 9 years of imprisonment. This is already the second trial of the Russian journalist accused of handing over secret documents to Japan. The first trial took place two years ago, during which Pasko was sentenced to a three-year imprisonment and released after amnesty.

The Public Prosecutor General’s Office could not resign itself with such a mild sentence, so it demanded a new trial. While Grigori Pasko also did not want to give up. “I cannot agree to a compromise,” – Grigori Pasko said, meaning the first trial’s decision that sentenced him to three years of imprisonment instead of several years and amnestied just in court. The case is still not clear. FSB and the military prosecutor’s office are persistent in their wish to send Pasko to prison, which testifies more to their weakness than for their strength. In addition, the secrecy of the process should be taken into account, though the secrets as if handed over by Pasko to the Japanese are no longer secrets. Once, in Moscow, a rumour was spread that at the beginning of the reorganization in Russia, an order from the very top came about declassifying Mosin three-linear rifle with which our great-grand fathers were fought during World War I. Apropos, in spite of the process being closed, almost all materials are available on the Internet. The advocate Ivan Pavlov admitted he himself had furthered it and he was ready to be responsible for his actions. After the first trial of 1999, the doom appeared on the Internet, which is also a secret document. Though nobody was punished for the leakage of secret information leakage. A FSB official, while commenting the process, honestly admitted that the advocates had practically pinned them down. “The FSB cannot catch spies,” the journalist ambiguously said.

Therefore, if, as a result of the trial, a new charge appears, Pasko will again make a complaint against it, even in the international court.

Dmitry Litvinovich PRAVDA.Ru

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/12/18/34920.html