MOSCOW. May 26 (Interfax) - The wife of Col. Alexander Poteyev, a Russian intelligence officer accused of treachery that led to the exposure of ten Russian spies in the United States last summer, was interrogated as a witness by a military court on Wednesday.
Poteyev's wife was questioned by the Moscow District Military Court "in the presence of a lawyer she has invited," court spokeswoman Lyudmila Klimenko told Interfax.
"An overwhelming majority of the media have published untrue information that Poteyev's wife lives in the U.S.," Klimenko said. The spokeswoman said she did not know the first name of the woman, who, accompanied by her lawyer, hastily left the court building after the session, refusing to talk to reporters.
The lawyer confirmed that the colonel's wife is a witness for the defense in the criminal proceedings against her husband, who lives abroad.
In early May, the Federal Security Service reported on the completion of the investigation into the criminal case against Alexander Poteyev, who served at the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).
The name of Alexander Poteyev, former deputy head of the U.S. office of the SVR S Department (illegal intelligence), appeared in the media in summer 2010 following the spy scandal in the U.S. According to media reports, he was the main person suspected of betraying a chain of Russian spies to the Americans.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources earlier reported that Poteyev had betrayed a group of Russian spies in the U.S. "He left Russia several days prior to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Washington in June and is now in the U.S.," one of the sources said.
"His daughter and son had left for the U.S. several days prior to Poteyev's flight under various pretexts. His wife had been living in the U.S. for a long time. These circumstances, which accompany the traitor's flight, no doubt indicate that our special services have made big mistakes," the source said.
Another source said that "because of his position, Poteyev, who was one of the top officials in the U.S. department directly managing the illegal agents working in the U.S., of course had access to virtually all information about them."