MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax) - The case of Russian citizen Valery Selyanin, suspected of high treason, will be presented to the prosecution service in the beginning of next week.
The Moscow City Court on Tuesday rejected the defense team's objections to the arrest extension for 20 months, until April 28. The period of the high treason inquiry (article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code) has been extended until May 29.
The other two defendants are foreign citizens who, according to the detective, "speak a rare oriental language, which creates a translation problem due to the shortage of such specialists."
The defendants are familiarizing themselves with the case, which will be submitted to the prosecution service before March 30 for approval of the bill of indictment, the detective said.
Selyanin, a native of the Sumy region of Ukraine and a technical specialist, is accused of rendering consultations and other aid to foreign citizens to the prejudice of security of the Russian Federation. He did not disclose state secrets and the hearings were open.
Selyanin pleaded not guilty.
"The detectives had a full idea of my innocence from the start. No accusations were brought against me and every examination confirmed that I was completely innocent. I have no reason to go into hiding," he said.
Selyanin added that he was not a threat to society, being a father of three adult children and would-be grandfather of his fifth grandchild.
The criminal inquiry was launched on August 29, 2013, against Selyanin and a number of unidentified individuals, and definitive accusations were brought against him on December 3, 2014.
A series of espionage and high treason cases were reported in February 2015.
The Moscow Lefortovsky District Court extended the arrest of Russian citizen Gennady Kravtsov accused of high treason and former director of Ukraine's Znamya defense plant Yuriy Soloshenko accused of espionage in early February.
The case of a mother of many children from the Smolensk region, Svetlana Davydova who was first arrested on high treason charges and then released with travel restrictions caused public outcry. The case was closed later due to the absence of formal elements of a crime.
Former senior researcher of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center Vladimir Golubev was accused of divulgence of state secrets in the Nizhny Novgorod region on February 4. "Golubev is an expert in explosives, and his work was dedicated to that subject. The report was the reason for opening a criminal inquiry against Golubev under part 1, article 283 (divulgence of state secrets). The defense said the scientist did not disclose any state secrets," lawyer Yevgeny Gubin told Interfax last week.
The arrest of former employee of the Moscow Patriarchate Yevgeny Petrin on the charges of high treason in favor of the United States was reported in a later period. The lawyer and the Moscow Lefortovsky District Court officially confirmed the information.
A source familiar with the situation said that Russian security services caught a suspected spy, Black Sea Fleet Koida tanker crewmember Sergei Minakov, in February. He was taken to the Moscow detention center and the case was dropped on March 19.
A guilty verdict was passed on Russian Navy servicemen transferring secret information to foreign states in late February. "The convicts are already serving their prison time. The sentences were given to senior Navy officers Zakhariy Agapishvili and Sergei Danilchenko and another two servicemen, Levan Charkviani and Konstantin Yashin," a source told Interfax. The Supreme Court told Interfax that the sentence had taken effect.
On March 5, the Moscow City Court sentenced former Krasnoyarsk Police Maj. Roman Ushakov to 15 years in a hard-security penitentiary on high treason counts (article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code). The court found out that he handed over an encrypted cable containing secret information about the Interior Ministry activity to CIA agents.