Two of the four Russians expelled from the country in a historic spy swap are in a hotel somewhere outside London with no British visas, according to the brother of one of them.
Igor Sutyagin, an arms researcher, was still in prison clothes, without money or plans, pondering whether to remain in the country or return to his homeland, his brother told the Associated Press yesterday. Sutyagin briefly called his wife, Irina Manannikova, yesterday, in the first contact with his family since his deportation, said the brother, Dmitry Sutyagin.
“He said he’s in a small town on the outskirts of London but where exactly he doesn’t know because when he was taken there he wasn’t told anything,” Dmitry Sutyagin told the AP at his home in Obninsk, about 60 kilometers southwest of Moscow.
Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence who was found guilty of passing state secrets to Britain, is in the same hotel, Dmitry Sutyagin said.
Sutyagin, Skripal and two other Russians convicted of spying for the West were exchanged Friday in Vienna for 10 Russian agents deported from the United States.
The four expelled by Russia were then flown to Britain and the plane later went to the United States. Sutyagin and Skripal got off the plane in Britain.
Sutyagin was given a telephone card to make the call and there was no way to call him back, the brother said.
Telephone cards often mask the number being called from so that it does not register on caller identification systems.
Sutyagin does not yet have a British entry visa, which limits his freedom to move, but expects to have one soon, his brother said.
