Russia sentences Estonian businessman to 12 years for espionage
The Moscow City Court sentenced a businessman from Estonia, Raivo Susi to 12 years of imprisonment in a high-security correctional facility for espionage, Interfax reports. The trial was closed to the public; the Susi’s case is classified as top-secret.
Susi was detained in Moscow on 10 February 2016 in the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo Airport while on his way from Tallinn to one of the Central Asian republics. After that, the Lefortovo court of Moscow put him in custody.
The businessman’s lawyer, Alexey Tolpegin, explained that his client had been charged with espionage regarding the events that took place in 2004-2007. The convicted person himself denies his guilt and believes that has become a hostage to the relations between Russia and Estonia.
As reported by the Estonian Public Broadcasting Corporation, Susi’s company had been acting as an intermediary on the sale of Russian-made training jet aircrafts to the West for several years.
Interfax news agency, referring to the business register of Estonia, specifies that Susi is a co-owner of firms Laki Autos and Musket that are involved in the supply of aircraft, as well as Aerohooldus OU that repairs aircraft. OU Musket firm is an intermediary in trading in arms, ammunition, fire control systems, land, water and air vehicles, and ballistic-protective vehicles.
His customers were millionaire-members of the aviation clubs of Russia, as well as England, the United States, and Western Europe, Interfax reports. From 1994 onwards, Susi "has sent to the West a whole squadron of training fighter aircrafts that would be enough to equip all of the Estonian Air Force."
In early November, a citizen of Russia, suspected of cooperating with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), was detained in Estonia.