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Two testimonies prove secrecy of data handed over by advisor to Roscosmos chief - attorney

He clarified that the defense team had not been given a chance to familiarize themselves with the expert statements, they were only mentioned in the decree, formally launching the criminal proceedings

MOSCOW, July 8. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has attached to the treason case of Ivan Safronov, advisor to the head of Russia’s space agency (Roscosmos), two expert testimonies, proving the confidential nature of data Safronov handed over to a foreign intelligence service, attorney Ivan Pavlov told TASS.

"The case has two testimonies of specialists who confirm the secret nature of the information Safronov handed over. One testimony dates back to September 2019, while the second one is from May 2020," Pavlov noted.

He clarified that the defense team had not been given a chance to familiarize themselves with the expert statements, they were only mentioned in the decree, formally launching the criminal proceedings.

Ivan Safronov, an advisor to the Roscosmos chief, was detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on July 7 on suspicion of treason. The FSB says that Safronov was recruited in 2012 and in 2017 he provided the Czech intelligence agencies with information about Russian arms supplies to the Middle East and Africa. The information was later passed on to the US counterparts, according to the case materials.

Ivan Safronov was born in 1990. He worked for the Kommersant business daily in 2010-2019. In 2019-2020, he became a special correspondent on military, defense and space topics with the Vedomosti business daily. In May 2020, he was appointed as an information policy advisor to the CEO of Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation. The FSB investigator denied that the case was in any way linked to Safronov’s journalistic activities, however, his defense is claiming otherwise.