MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) - Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund expert Antonina Zimina, who received a 13-year sentence after being found guilty of high treason, has filed a petition for a pardon, her father Konstantin Zimin told Interfax.
"She has already submitted a petition for a pardon. She continues to deny any wrongdoing, but the conditions in the remand facility are unbearable," Zimin said.
Zimina's husband, Konstantin Antonets, who was convicted in the same case, has decided against filing a pardon petition, he said.
On December 24, the Kaliningrad Regional Court found Zimina guilty of high treason. She was sentenced to 13 years in a standard-security penitentiary and was given a fine of 100,000 rubles. Antonets was sentenced to 12 years and six months in a high-security penal colony and given the same fine.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said that Zimina was recruited by Latvian special services in 2012 while traveling abroad.
"Subsequently, she gathered information constituting a state secret and passed it to Latvia's special services. Thus, in 2015, Antonina Zimina involved her husband Konstantin Antonets in collaboration with the Latvian special services. During his tenure at the Economy Ministry of the Kaliningrad region, Antonets stole classified information and together with Zimina passed it to the Latvian special services," the FSB said.
The trial was held behind closed doors as classified materials were read there.
Zimina, who was an independent expert with the Club of Friends at the Gorchakov Fund at the time she was detained, has been under arrest since summer 2018. Antonets was arrested a year later. He worked as a lawyer in the Kaliningrad regional government in 2015-2016. He was working for a law firm in Moscow before his arrest. Antonets did not have access to state secrets at either place of his employment.
According to media reports, the couple disclosed the identity of a current employee of the Federal Security Service's regional branch.