LA TIMES MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court convicted two brothers with dual Russian-U.S. citizenship of industrial espionage Thursday and gave them one-year suspended sentences, according Russia's top domestic security agency.
The Federal Security Service said Ilya and Alexander Zaslavsky were convicted of attempting to acquire classified commercial data from state-owned Russian energy company Gazprom. Ilya Zaslavsky was employed by TNK-BP, a major Russian-British energy concern, when he was detained in March 2008 with his brother, who worked for an alumni club set up by the British Embassy's cultural arm in Moscow.
They were arrested after a series of police raids on TNK-BP, prompting speculation that they were victims of deteriorating relations between Britain and Russia, caused by a string of spying scandals. Russia's Foreign Ministry dismissed the suggestion.
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