In a closed-door trial that shed new light on the Kremlin's biggest spy embarrassment since the Cold War, Colonel Alexander Poteyev, a senior director in Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service, was found guilty in absentia and faces twenty five years in jail if ever caught.
The court made public a farewell text message that Col. Poteyev sent to his wife Marina while fleeing the country last June. "Mary, try to take this calmly: I am leaving not for a short time but forever," he wrote.
"I did not want this but I had to. I am starting a new life. I shall try to help the children," he added, referring to his two adult children who had by then moved to the United States.
His wife Marina testified in his defence and is said to be keen to join him in America but has said she has no idea of his precise whereabouts.
"Poteyev's actions dealt a significant blow to Russia's national security", the court ruled, stripping him of his rank and state awards, a punishment that is unlikely to disrupt his new life in the US.
As deputy head of the SVR's department 'S' which ran illegal sleeper agents in America, the judge ruled that the 59-year-old spy had used his classified knowledge to leave the Kremlin's network of agents in the US in tatters.
Anna Chapman and nine other agents were ignominiously deported by Washington last summer in the biggest East-West spy swap since the Cold War due to his treason, the court said, a move that set the Kremlin's US espionage operation back by at least a decade according to some experts.
He had also told the Americans how Moscow financed and communicated with its agents, the court added.
New details of his dramatic escape emerged during the trial with witnesses testifying that he was in such a hurry to leave that he walked out of a meeting at the SVR foreign intelligence service's Moscow headquarters to catch a night train to neighbouring Belarus where he was met by CIA agents.
The US agents then apparently smuggled him into America via Ukraine and Germany using a fake Russian passport that had been forged using the stolen but real-life details of a Russian citizen who had applied for a US visa.
Anna Chapman, who has tried to cash in on her new-found celebrity, is said to have testified against Col. Poteyev, saying he was the only one who could have betrayed her and the others. The court heard that he had been working for the CIA since 1999, and had also betrayed Kremlin agents working in Latin America and Canada.
Before his alleged betrayal, he was regarded as a loyal patriot. He had served in the KGB's elite 'Zenith' special forces unit during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, while his father was a Hero of the Soviet Union. But he is reported to have worked in New York during the 1990s and it was there that the CIA allegedly recruited him.
Although his colleagues have accused him of selling his country out for as little as the equivalent of £12,000, the court said it had found no evidence that he had taken cash for his betrayal. Col. Poteyev's lawyer said he would appeal the sentence. Former colleagues have said he should be shot.
The court made public a farewell text message that Col. Poteyev sent to his wife Marina while fleeing the country last June. "Mary, try to take this calmly: I am leaving not for a short time but forever," he wrote.
"I did not want this but I had to. I am starting a new life. I shall try to help the children," he added, referring to his two adult children who had by then moved to the United States.
His wife Marina testified in his defence and is said to be keen to join him in America but has said she has no idea of his precise whereabouts.
"Poteyev's actions dealt a significant blow to Russia's national security", the court ruled, stripping him of his rank and state awards, a punishment that is unlikely to disrupt his new life in the US.
As deputy head of the SVR's department 'S' which ran illegal sleeper agents in America, the judge ruled that the 59-year-old spy had used his classified knowledge to leave the Kremlin's network of agents in the US in tatters.
Anna Chapman and nine other agents were ignominiously deported by Washington last summer in the biggest East-West spy swap since the Cold War due to his treason, the court said, a move that set the Kremlin's US espionage operation back by at least a decade according to some experts.
New details of his dramatic escape emerged during the trial with witnesses testifying that he was in such a hurry to leave that he walked out of a meeting at the SVR foreign intelligence service's Moscow headquarters to catch a night train to neighbouring Belarus where he was met by CIA agents.
The US agents then apparently smuggled him into America via Ukraine and Germany using a fake Russian passport that had been forged using the stolen but real-life details of a Russian citizen who had applied for a US visa.
Anna Chapman, who has tried to cash in on her new-found celebrity, is said to have testified against Col. Poteyev, saying he was the only one who could have betrayed her and the others. The court heard that he had been working for the CIA since 1999, and had also betrayed Kremlin agents working in Latin America and Canada.
Before his alleged betrayal, he was regarded as a loyal patriot. He had served in the KGB's elite 'Zenith' special forces unit during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, while his father was a Hero of the Soviet Union. But he is reported to have worked in New York during the 1990s and it was there that the CIA allegedly recruited him.
Although his colleagues have accused him of selling his country out for as little as the equivalent of £12,000, the court said it had found no evidence that he had taken cash for his betrayal. Col. Poteyev's lawyer said he would appeal the sentence. Former colleagues have said he should be shot.
