10 Russian spy suspects plead guilty, could be sent to Moscow for spy swap by Thursday night
BY Scott Shifrel and Helen Kennedy
www.nydailynews.com
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS ________________________
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Originally Published:Thursday, July 8th 2010, 1:05 PM
Updated: Thursday, July 8th 2010, 3:32 PM
Williams/APFrom left, Vicky Pelaez, Richard Murphy, Cynthia Murphy and Juan Lazaro. Related NewsArticles
Spy swap? Deal in works to trade lleged Russian spies for US agents.
Ten suspected Russian sleeper spies pleaded guilty Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom and could be out of the country by sundown - sent home in a swap with Moscow for Washington's blown secret agents.Some of their US-born kids have reportedly already been packed off to Russia.The dramatic spy swap - the first since the Cold War ended - got underway Thursday morning when scientist Igor Sutyagin, who was arrested in 1999 for passing secrets to the CIA, landed in Vienna on his way to London, according to Russia's state-run news agency.
Sutyagin was told his release was part of a one-for-one exchange that would free the 10 accused spies busted in the United States last week, according to his lawyer, Anna Stavitskaya.
The 10 pleaded guilty - as Sutyagin was made to do in exchange for his freedom - and may be hustled onto planes as early as tonight.
There is a 7 p.m. non-stop Aeroflot flight to Moscow from JFK Airport. Sexy redhead Anna Chapman can't wait to be gone and planned to head straight to the airport from the courtroom, her lawyer told ABC News.
The fate of the seven children born in the United States to the undercover couples to improve their cover stories was unclear.
The Boston Globe reported that the two sons, aged 20 and 16, born here to the Russians posing as Donald Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley left for Russia in the last few days.
Russian newspapers have named three other men - all former double agents in the Russian intelligence services serving time for espionage - who will be swapped for the suburban spies:
*Col. Sergei Skripal, who was found guilty in 2006 passing the names of Russian under cover spies in Europe to the British.
*Col. Alexander Zaporozhsky, found guilty in 2003 of telling the CIA about Russian under cover agents in the United States.
*Col. Alexander Sypachev, found guilty in 2002 of passing secrets to the CIA.
The U.S. appears to be getting the better part of the deal: the 10 spies busted in Yonkers, Montclair, N.J., Boston, Seattle and Arlington, Va., uncovered no secrets for Moscow and have not even been charged with espionage, just failing to register as foreign agents.
Read more:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/07/08/2010-07-08_russian_spy_suspects_expected_to_be_swapped_with_russia_for_caught_cia_spy.html#ixzz0t7gLhI48________________________
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Something feels really off with this.
