MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. A FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) investigator has refused to disclose details of charges against Roscosmos CEO advisor and former journalist Ivan Safronov, who is accused of high treason, Safronov’s attorney Ivan Pavlov told TASS on Monday.
"We filed an inquiry with FSB investigators to disclose details of charges against Safronov. We have recently received a copy of an order of refusal to satisfy out motion. It means that FSB will not explain what exactly our client is charged with until the end of the pre-trial investigation. Bearing in mind the fact that pre-trial investigations in such cases typically take from 12 to 18 months, further news on Safronov’s case cannot be expected soon," he said.
According to Pavlov, the defense attorneys have only been told that Safronov had allegedly been recruited by the Czech special services and back in 2017 had handed over to it secret information about Russia’s military technical cooperation with African countries and Russia’s military activities in the Middle East. "We asked to tell us when and how Safronov had been recruited, how the investigators think he had obtained access to state secrets, where and whom he had handed over the secret information and what kind of secret information is was. But our inquiry has been turned down," he said.
On July 7, he was detained and arrested on high treason charges. He denies his guilt.
According to Russia’s Federal Security Service, Safronov was recruited in 2012 and in 2017 he shared information about Russia’s military technical cooperation with African countries and the activities of the Russian military in the Middle East with the Czech intelligence agencies, with the United States being the end user of this information.
Before joining Roscosmos, Safronov worked for the Kommersant and Vedomosti business dailies.