Spy swap completed

An American plane picking up four Russians jailed for spying has landed in the US. The arrival in Washington was a low-key event. It is believed two of the men were dropped off en route earlier in the UK.

Completing the biggest spy swap since the Cold War, another plane carrying ten people arrested in the US, has also arrived in Russia. Once back in Moscow, after an exchange in Vienna, they were driven away in a convoy of vehicles.

Robert Baum, lawyer for Anna Chapman said:
“I think she would have preferred to stay here. She tried to establish a business here, a business that she had established in Moscow. What she did was minimal under the statute with what she was charged.”

One of the men freed by the Kremlin is Igor Sutyagin, an arms control analyst who has been in a Russian prison since 2004.

Another is Alexander Zaporozhsky, a former colonel in the Russian foreign intelligence service, convicted of treason for cooperating with the US.

Sergei Skripal is also part of the exchange. He is a Russian intelligence officer, who also held the rank of colonel, and was accused of spying for Britain.

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