contractor on espionage charges afterhe spent two-and-a-half years in
prison for buying apiece of outdated Soviet equipment from Ukrainian
partners.
The court ruling was announced late Thursday, according to the defense team.
Artur Stepanyants, 53, whose saga was reported in The Moscow Times in
March of last year, was arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement officers
in 2010 while purchasing Soviet-made naval equipment he had been
planning to use for spare parts for the ships of the Russian naval
fleet in Sevastopol.
According to documents released during the trial, the seller of the
equipmentwas an informant for the local security services.
Stepanyants — who was arrested during the tenure of Ukrainian
President Viktor Yushchenko, who had a strained relationship with
Russia — was accusedof spying against Ukraine on the grounds that the
equipment he bought contained secret components.
His defense team and independent experts said the equipment was
produced during the Sovietperiod and was of no interest to Russia.
Stepanyants told The Moscow Times by phone from his home in St.
Petersburg that Ukrainian prosecutors have 15 days to appeal the
verdict. The Sevastopol prosecutor's office told the Unian Ukraina
news agency that it would appeal the verdict.
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