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Moscow court puts rocket center staffer under house arrest on high treason charge

According to the website of the Russian rocket and spacecraft scientific center, Sergey Meshcheryakov is a senior scientific researcher

© Sergei Shleyuk/TASS

MOSCOW, July 15./TASS/. Moscow’s Lefortovo court has put under house arrest Sergey Meshcheryakov, a staffer of the Heat Exchange and Aerogas Dynamics Center at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIImash), suspected of high treason, court sources told TASS on Monday.

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Russian official suspected of treason sacked, says source

"The Lefortovo district court of Moscow has chosen house arrest until September 3 as a pre-trial restraint for Meshcheryakov Sergey suspected of committing a crime under Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code (High Treason)," a court representative said.

According to the website of the Russian rocket and spacecraft scientific center, Meshcheryakov is a senior scientific researcher.

Earlier, the court arrested the chief of the Heat Exchange and Aerogas Dynamics Center, Roman Kovalyov, on high treason charges.

Another TsNIImash employee, Viktor Kudryavtsev, 75, was arrested on July 20, 2018. According to a source of TASS, investigators charge him with transferring classified information via e-mail to Belgium’s von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, with which TSNIIMASH (the main research institute of the Roscosmos State Space Corporation) cooperated under an agreement approved by the Russian government.

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