Journalist Safronov case sent to court - Prosecutor General's Office
MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has approved the indictment in the criminal case against journalist Ivan Safronov, the Office's press service told Interfax on Saturday.
"The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia has approved the indictment in the criminal case accusing a citizen of the Russian Federation, Ivan Safronov, of having committed two crimes envisaged by Article 275 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code," the service said.
The case had been sent to Moscow City Court for trial, they said.
Safronov has been charged with treason in the form of espionage, involving an accomplice.
"The inquiry found and documented instances of Safronov having for a long time, between 2015 and 2019, been enquiring and gathering secret and top secret information, including with regard to Russia's military-technical cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty Organization states and also countries of the Middle East, Africa and the Balkan peninsula," the press service said.
According to the inquiry, the intelligence collected would be "systematically passed [by Safronov] to foreign intelligence representatives, while aware that this information could be used by NATO member states against the security of the Russian Federation."
Safronov had committed treason for remuneration and using cryptographic methods, the investigation found.
Safronov, who still occupies the post of advisor on information policy to Roscosmos's CEO, was detained on July 7, 2020, and a court ruled he be taken into custody shortly afterwards. He has been charged with high treason.
The charges brought against Safronov on the first count of the case assert that he was recruited by a representative of a Czech security service in 2012 and shared with it secret information related to Russia's military-technical cooperation with African countries and the Russian Armed Forces' activity in the Middle East in 2017. According to the investigation, the end recipient of this secret information was the United States.
In addition, the investigation has concluded that Safronov provided political researcher Demuri Voronin, who has Russian and German passports, with certain information concerning the Russian Armed Forces' operations in Syria to December 2015 for a reward of $248, and the latter subsequently forwarded this information to representatives of the University of Zurich in Switzerland and the Federal Intelligence Service [BND] of Germany. The [Russian] Federal Security Service believes that this information could have been used to analyze the operations of Russian forces in Syria.
Safronov has denied any wrongdoing and believes that the case is related to his journalistic activity. As his defense lawyers said, Safronov has refused to conclude a plea agreement twice.
President Vladimir Putin has said that Safronov's prosecution is unrelated to his work as a journalist.
Before joining Roscosmos, Safronov worked as a correspondent for the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers, specializing, in particular, in the defense industry and the space sector.
Voronin, who is implicated in the second count of Safronov's case, was arrested in Moscow in February 2021. He has also been charged with high treason. His defense team has not commented on the matter.
