Russia sentences American citizen Gene Spektor to maximum security prison for 'espionage'

Gene Spektor, a businessman who was born and raised in Russia before moving to the US and becoming a citizen, has been sentenced to one of Putin's maximum security prisons for 'espionage'

An American citizen has been sentenced to prison in Russia for "espionage".

Gene Spektor, a businessman who was born and raised in Russia before moving to the US and becoming a citizen, was already serving a prison sentence on a bribery conviction when he was arrested on an espionage charge last year.

RIA Novosti reports Moscow City Court has now sentenced him to 15 years behind bars. Giving the verdict, the judge said: "To sentence Spektor to 13 years' imprisonment... together (with the previous sentence) to finally sentence him to 15 years' imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony."

The court also upheld a fine of 14million rubles (£111,000) from the previous verdict. All of the hearings, apart from the verdict, were held behind closed doors.

In 2021, Spektor pleaded guilty to mediating a bribe for an aide to a Russian deputy prime minister while he was chairman of the board of the Medpolimerprom group of companies in Russia. Spektor was accused of mediating a bribe in the form of two holiday packages to Thailand and the Dominican Republic worth 4million rubles (£32,000) in 2015 and 2016

He was initially sentenced to four years in prison, but was retried on a technicality and received a new sentence of three-and-a-half years behind bars in September 2022.

Spektor was bon in Leningrad. He is reportedly married to a Russian woman and had lived in St Petersburg for five years prior to his initial arrest.

RIA Novosti previously reported he had complained to a human rights activist about being held in cold conditions at a pre-trial detention centre following his arrest. But Alexey Melnikov, executive secretary of the public monitoring commission of Moscow, refuted this at the time.

He said: "He has board games, a TV, a refrigerator, a kettle. He prefers financial literature and books about new technologies."

Spektor told his lawyer that he considered his arrest politically motivated and illegal.