The U.S. government attacked the treatment and conviction of ailing businessman Edmond Pope, 54, a former naval intelligence officer. He had been charged with trying to obtain classified documents on a revolutionary high-speed torpedo system.
The court convicted Pope under article 276 of the Russian criminal code, which includes "gathering of state secrets with the purpose of transferring them to another state."
The judge passed the maximum sentence allowed following a demand by the state prosecutor, marking the first time a U.S. citizen has been convicted of espionage in Russia in 40 years.
In 1960, U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers, who was shot down while flying over the Soviet Union, stood trial but was allowed to return to the United States in an exchange for a Soviet spy.
The U.S. government immediately attacked the ruling and urged Moscow to release Pope on "humanitarian grounds."
"There's no doubt this has cast a shadow over U.S.-Russian relations," White House press secretary Jake Siewert said.
"The president has expressed his concern about Mr. Pope on a number of different levels. We've seen no evidence that he is guilty of the crimes under which he's been charged."
President Clinton has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to free Pope, but the Russian leader has said the judicial process must run its course, Fox News reported.
"We're very disturbed by the conviction. We think it's unjustified," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday.
"I think the Russians do understand that this is an important issue to us," Boucher said. "And we will continue to make that case and make the point to them directly."
Russia's treatment of Pope, whose health declined during his 10-month imprisonment, sparked rising anger in America. The House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on Russia to free Pope and asking Clinton to consider stopping aid to Russia if it did not.
During Pope's trial, the State Department issued a warning that certain activities considered normal in the United States or other countries are still illegal or suspect in Russia, Fox News reported.
Pope's wife, Cheri, was present for the verdict.
According to her, Pope's condition worsened dramatically since he was imprisoned in April. He can't hold a pen to write, his blood pressure is very high, and one side of his body is numb, leading his family and supporters to fear he has actually suffered a stroke, Mrs. Pope told Fox News.
"My husband's very sick, and he is very frightened. Quite frankly, the only thing I said to him was, 'I am there for you,' " she said.
Pope has been held in a cell at Moscow's Lefortovo Prison. The sentence handed down Wednesday was backdated to the day of his arrest, meaning he has already served eight months.
Before being sentenced, Pope accused the prosecution of lying and appealed to the judge to release him because he was innocent. Pope's defense, led by attorney Pavel Astakhov, insisted that the documents the prosecution was referring to were not classified but available on the open market.
Pope and his lawyer had made several appeals for a release from prison on health grounds. Pope has a rare form of bone cancer that is in remission but may return.
The appeals were rejected. Federal Security Service (FSB) officers ruled that Pope was fit to stand trial.
After the sentencing, FSB spokesman Alexander Zdanovich said the court had "confirmed the legality of the FSB investigation," expressing satisfaction that the maximum sentence had been applied.
Pope has seven days to appeal the sentencing, but because of a national holiday, Constitution Day, Pope's lawyer will have to file an appeal within four days.
The trial has mainly focused on determining whether the documents and designs to which Pope had gained access were "classified" or whether they could have been obtained legally.
Pope, who has been on trial since Oct. 18, has said he was trying to buy material on a torpedo that was already openly available. Prosecutors said he was buying secret information.
Pope's lawyers and family have accused the court of favoring the prosecutor and the Federal Security Service, which initiated the case.
Astakhov, Pope's lawyer, said that Pope had stressed that the condition for his working in Russia was that no classified materials would be included in the publications he was collecting. He said that Pope had started collecting information in Russia in 1996, in a more open time, and that the atmosphere had since changed sharply, Fox News reported.
The case became confused last month after a key prosecution witness, a professor at a technical university, who also faces spying charges, withdrew the testimony he had originally given because he said it had been coerced.
Pope's sentence also calls for the confiscation of money allegedly seized when he was obtaining information from a Russian source.
Pope's trial was another symbol of deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations.
Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov informed the U.S. that his country would back out of a secret pact aimed at curbing Russian conventional arms exports to Iran. American negotiators were in Moscow Wednesday to attempt to repair the agreement, which promised the United States would not enforce a swath of sanctions that would apply to countries that sell weapons to Tehran.
Pope's trial and health have come up in nearly every high-level discussion between Russian and U.S. officials, including talks in Brunei between Clinton and Putin. But these discussions have had no effect on the outcome of the case, as evidenced by the court's decision Wednesday.
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