Double agent sold off Russian secrets

MOSCOW - A Cold War-style espionage row reached its dramatic climax when a retired Russian secret service officer was sentenced to 13 years in a prison camp after apparently confessing to being a double agent for MI6.

In a secret Moscow trial that could have come straight from the pages of a John Le Carre novel, retired Colonel Sergei Skripal, now 55, was reported to have admitted selling the names, addresses, and codenames of "several dozen" Russian agents to MI6 over a period of 10 years.

The agents he exposed worked "under cover" in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.

Moscow admitted that his treachery had seriously compromised Russia's intelligence network.

A veil of secrecy surrounds much of the case owing to its sensitivity but it is known that Skripal was formally either an agent for the FSB (the successor organisation to the KGB) or, more likely, for the Defence Ministry's Main Intelligence Department, which is known as GRU.

His motives appear to have been financial; he was reportedly paid more than US$100,000 ($157,000) to betray his country, a large amount in Russia where the average monthly wage is US$480.

According to prosecutors, Skripal was recruited by MI6 in the mid-1990s during an extended foreign assignment in an unnamed country when on military business.

They alleged that he continued to spy for Britain after he returned to Russia and even after he retired in 1999 when he started tapping former colleagues for sensitive information.

The retired colonel, who was pictured on Russian TV wearing a tracksuit in his courtroom cage, was reportedly paid in cash each time he met his MI6 handler and also received monthly payments in a Spanish bank account.

The information he sold on was detailed and even included the dates and locations of agents' clandestine meetings with their Kremlin handlers.

MI6 used his tipoffs to place the compromised agents under surveillance in order to learn as much as it could about their activities before blowing the whistle on them and having them sent back to Moscow.

Given that it takes years to train and place field agents, Skripal's betrayal was a serious blow.

Skripal was arrested in December 2004 though the fact that he was caught was made public only on Wednesday, the day he was sentenced after a one-month secret trial and an investigation lasting a year and a half.

A Moscow military court sentenced him to 13 years in a high-security prison camp and ordered that he be stripped of his rank and medals, a verdict Skripal allegedly considered overly harsh.

Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky called the verdict "lawful and justified."

This is the second major spy row involving Britain and Russia this year.

In January four British diplomats based in Moscow were accused of spying and of using a sophisticated data transmitter disguised as a rock to liaise with local Russian agents.

The fact that a James Bond-like device was at the centre of the row raised titters but the Kremlin took the matter seriously.

The diplomats were named on State TV that broadcast embarrassing footage of them apparently retrieving data from the "spy rock". The FSB said at least one Russian national was arrested in connection with that scandal.

- INDEPENDENT