Russian Scientist Spy Suspect Knew He Was Contacting Agents, Sutyagin Says In Video Footage

Igor Sutyagin of the Moscow-based Institute of US and Canadian Studies had known from the start that he was dealing with secret agents under the cover of London's consulting company, Alternative Futures, he says in a video footage made during preliminary investigation on his espionage case, December 1999 into December 2000. Officers of the Federal Security Service Public Relations Centre showed the footage to a RIA Novosti reporter on Friday. The video was made with the suspect's consent for a documentary film to be based on it, said a centre spokesman. The researcher tells in the recording about his reasons for intelligence work. Money was his principal vehicle. "I had a family to keep up," says Sutyagin. Sean Kidd and Nadia Lock of the Alternative Futures, who kept in contact with him, were hunting for information about the latest Russian military-oriented R&D, in particular, technical characteristics of new-generation submarines, acoustic submarine detection, and vulnerable points of Russian-manufactured arms and military technologies. Sutyagin initially received 700 pounds sterling for a batch of information. The payments eventually rose to a thousand pounds, he says. The Federal Security Service spokesman refused to comment the footage, and said it had never been shown to avoid influence on the judiciary. The Kaluga regional court, where the case is heard, yesterday turned it down for further inquiry. According to his investigation file, Igor Sutyagin first contacted an Alternative Futures officer on a research trip to Great Britain, February 1998. Russia's Federal Security Service knows the company for an intelligence organisation with no research interests.