Russian Diplomat Charged With Espionage Taken To Psycho-House

Platon Obukhov facing espionage charges has been taken to the Serbsky Scientific Centre of Social and Forensic Psychiatry for a forensic psychological and psychiatric examination. Director of the Centre Tatyana Dmitriyeva said as much at a news conference Wednesday. In her words, the examination will take about a month which has been clearly formulated in the new law on state and forensic expert checks. Platon Obukhov, 30, a son of the former deputy foreign minister of the USSR and the Russian ambassador to Denmark, was arrested in April 1996 on suspicion of spying for the MI-6 intelligence service of Great Britain. In 1997, Moscow's City Court sent him to a psychiatric clinic for treatment. A year later the commission ruled his condition was within the norm.