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Russia convicts renegade ex-KGB spy in absentia
MOSCOW, June 27 (Reuters) - Russia convicted renegade former top KGB spy Oleg Kalugin of treason in absentia on Wednesday, sentencing the one-time head of Soviet counter intelligence, now a critic of President Vladimir Putin, to 15 years in prison.
Kalugin, who lives in the United States and did not appear in court, was charged only this April for revealing secrets apparently published eight years ago in his memoir "The First Directorate," a post-Cold War classic among spy buffs.
Russian media have also focused on his role in testifying in the United States against U.S. Army Reserve Colonel George Trofimoff, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer ever convicted of spying, who was jailed for life last September.
Kalugin, who had been Trofimoff's supervisor, denied he had blown Trofimoff's cover and said he was pressed into testifying against him. The Moscow City Court, which confirmed the conviction by telephone, said it did not consider the Trofimoff case in reaching its decision to convict Kalugin.
In an interview with Reuters last month, Kalugin said the case against him "shows how little Russian justice differs from that of the Soviet Union, judging people in absentia without due legal process."
"This is another attempt to settle scores for my old sins against the Soviet system. You realise the Soviet KGB is now in charge of the Kremlin, so they have a good chance to make retribution for what I did to them years ago," he said.
The KGB's successor domestic security agency, the FSB, said Kalugin's refusal to defend himself in court was a sign he considered himself guilty, Interfax news agency reported.
Kalugin had run the Soviet spy network in the United States before becoming chief of foreign counter intelligence in the 1970s. But in the 1980s, the one-time high flyer was given a less important post in Leningrad, today St Petersburg.
In the 1990s he went to the West and published his memoir, earning a spot on the spy enthusiast lecture circuit. But later, he feuded publicly with Putin as Putin rose to power. Kalugin has labelled the Russian president a "war criminal."
"Compared to Mr Putin's policies...and the devastation and destruction of Chechnya, Mr (former Yugoslav leader Slobodan) Milosevic who is now in the international court in the Hague, is truly a saint," Kalugin told Reuters last month.
He also denied that he had exposed Soviet spies still under cover in the United States.
"I knew dozens, if not hundreds, and some of them by name. They are still around, I mean they are old perhaps and no longer active, but they are very much alive."
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