A Russian court has jailed a former nuclear scientist who has been charged with divulging state secrets, state media reported Wednesday.
Vladimir Golubev was charged last year but released from custody on condition that he stay in town. He allegedly violated that order so now he will stay in jail for at least two months, news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Golubev, 66, faces up to four years in prison for providing allegedly classified information to a Czech scientific journal in 2013. Golubev's lawyer Yevgeny Gubin has maintained that the information was already available in open sources.
If the charge against Golubev is upgraded to treason, he will face up to 20 years in prison, according to Russian legislation. Golubev is awaiting trial in the city of Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod region.
Golubev's lawyer was quoted in the RIA Novosti report as saying that his client would appeal the court's decision to remand him in custody.
Golubev is not the first Russian scientist to face prison time for allegedly divulging state secrets in recent years.
Two professors at St. Petersburg's Baltic State Technical University — Yevgeny Afanasyev and Svyatoslav Bobyshev — were respectively sentenced to 12 and 12 1/2 years for treason in 2012 because they leaked information about Russia's Bulava rocket system to Chinese officials.
Afanasyev died of a heart attack in prison earlier this month, Russian media reported.
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