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Polish court rejects Russian spy’s appeal

19 May 2011 20:29 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A Warsaw appellate court upheld on Thursday a prison sentence to a Russian citizen convicted last year of spying for Moscow, Polish media reported, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

Tadeusz J., 41, was sentenced to three years in prison for espionage in December 2010, although he denied all charges against him. His lawyers had appealed the sentence citing lack of evidence.

According to the PAP news agency, the court said "the appeal clearly has no legal grounds."

Tadeusz J. was arrested on charges of gathering information about the Polish Army on behalf of Russia in February 2009. The man, who had been living in Poland for more than 10 years before he was arrested, is believed to have cooperated with Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU) for over six years, while he was running a small business in Poland.

He was under surveillance for several months before being arrested. An encoding device and special communications equipment were found at his residence at the time of his arrest.

The court reiterated that the man was "a classic deep cover agent and apparently did not have direct ties with the [Russian] embassy."