Academician Oskar Kaibyshev, center, intends to appeal the sentence, but the lawyers don’t advise him to do it.
Photo: Artem Valiev
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The State Secret Was Conditional
The Supreme Court of Bashkiria passed the six-year conditional sentence upon Academician Oskar Kaibyshev, director of Metal Superplasticity Institute of Russia’s Academy of Science. Kaibyshev hardly counted on the mild award, as prosecutors were pressing for the real prison, while investigators and judges were pressurized by Federal Security Service, according to the defense.
The close trial against Academician Oskar Kaibyshev, 67, started far back in October of 2005. The court interrogated 80 witnesses and attracted officials of various ministries and departments as experts.
Scientists and law advocates voiced their support to Kaibyshev in spring, comparing the criminal action against the academician to spying cases of Igor Sutyagin and Valentina Danilova, who were condemned for divulging state secrets. Also in spring, Federal Security Service Director Nikolay Patrushev canvassed the case with spokesmen of the Public Chamber of Russia.
Kaibyshev, who was under the not-to-leave recognizance, showed up in the court in company of two lawyers. He looked worried and exhausted, fearing, perhaps, of being placed under arrest already in the courtroom. The prosecutors pressed for six years in prison on counts of transferring the double-purpose technology to foreign states, office abuse and large misappropriation.
The case dates back to 2002-2003, when South Korean ASA got from Kaibyshev’s institute the samples of titanium product and aluminum alloys along with specification.
But the probe of Bashkir investigators traced the end clients. They were Korean Aerospace Research Institutes and a firm making rocket cases. Kaibyshev was charged with misappropriation of more than $100,000 paid by the Koreans under the contract.
The verdict delivered by Supreme Court of Bashkiria wasn’t very severe. Kaibyshev got the six-year conditional sentence, was committed to pay 3.5 million rubles to the institute and deprived of the right to head research institutions for three years.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 09, 2006
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