MOSCOW. Sept 8 (Interfax) - The first general-jurisdiction appellate court has upheld the sentence handed down to Alexei Vorobyov, former assistant professor at the Rocket Engine Department of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), who was sentenced to 20 years in a high security penal colony in a case of high treason and attempted smuggling of technology.
"The sentence of the Moscow City Court of April 23, 2021 against Vorobyov has been changed: the testimony of several witnesses was excluded; the verdict was overturned in terms of a decision on material evidence - money, and it has been sent to a retrial as part of the execution of the verdict. The rest of the verdict was upheld, an appeal in defense of Vorobyov was declined," court spokesperson Lyubov Budanova told Interfax on Wednesday.
Thus, the sentence handed down to Vorobyov was upheld.
As reported, the Moscow City Court sentenced Vorobyov to 20 years in a high security penal colony, a fine of 1 million rubles, and a term of restraint for a year and a half.
Following the appellate court's ruling, Vorobyov's sentence went into force and is subject to execution.
The court found Vorobyov guilty of high treason, preparations for illegal execution of work for a foreign organization which could be used in the creation of delivery vehicles for weapons of mass destruction subject to export control, and an attempt to smuggle weapons.
According to the case files, Vorobyov allegedly committed treason by transferring information constituting a state secret in November 2018 to a representative of Harbin Polytechnic University on a topic related to the mathematical modeling of stationary and transient processes of the operation of a "generator-free liquid-propellant rocket cryogenic fuel engine," the scientist's lawyer, Anton Golubev, told Interfax.
According to media reports, this concerns a copy of an abstract of a thesis which was handed over to Vorobyov for review. As evidence for this count, investigators presented a polymorphological examination, which revealed traces of dust particles from a "Chinese region" on the flash card of the scientist's phone, which contained photographs of the abstract of the thesis.
According to the defense team, prosecutors viewed as preparation for exports the conclusion of a technical agreement by Vorobyov with the Chinese company Deep Blue Aerospace in 2018, the subject of which was the creation of a project for a liquid-propellant rocket engine operating on oxygen-kerosene fuel.
Vorobyov committed a smuggling attempt in 2019, when he sent to China the RPK-170E autonomous regulatory control panel, which is part of the equipment for checking and controlling the airborne weapons of MiG and Sukhoi Su military aircraft.
Vorobyov, who was detained in the spring of 2019, pleaded not guilty.
In the appeal, his defense team insisted on overturning his sentence.
During the investigation and consideration of the case, "the very fact of the transfer [by Vorobyov] of information constituting a state secret, which is a key element in this corpus delicti, was not proved," lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina said.
"The charges issued by the investigators that became the basis for the conviction are based on a set of circumstantial evidence, none of which confirms the very fact of the transfer of classified information," the lawyer said.
Vetoshkina emphasized that the information, for the transfer of which Vorobyov was indicted, can be found in open scientific sources.
"Moreover, the prison term handed down by the court on this count, namely 15 years, is excessively harsh. This is one of the longest terms in the practice of crimes in the field of national security, however, the information, for the transfer of which he was indicted, is classified as secret, that is, it is the lowest degree of secrecy," the lawyer said.
The defense team also insists that Vorobyov "did not carry out work that could be subject to export control."
"In principle, he did not do any work for a foreign organization. By themselves, agreements cannot be subject to export control by virtue of the current legislation, which means that there is no corpus delicti. He just wanted to carry out preparatory work for long-term cooperation between Deep Blue Aerospace and MAI, which obviously cannot be considered a crime," Vetoshkina told Interfax.
The defense team regards the attempt at smuggling as a possible provocation, the lawyer said.
"He was approached by a person who voluntarily participates in operational activities - most likely, this is a staff officer of the security services - who persistently asked to send the regulatory control panel to China, never mentioning the possible criminal and legal consequences of such a dispatch. Current legislation prohibits a provocation in the implementation of operational activities. From the point of view of the European Court of Human Rights, this whole situation also resembles a provocation," Vetoshkina said.
Vorobyov has a PhD in technical sciences, lectures on the calculation and design of liquid rocket engines and the general theory of rocket and aviation engines at MAI, and has some scientific publications.
The trial against the scientist in both the first and second-instance courts was held in camera, since the materials in the criminal case are classified.