Legal teams for the prosecution and defense accused Moscow and Washington of interference as the trial of US national Edmund Pope, accused of spying, resumed in Moscow Saturday.
Prosecutor Oleg Plotnikov denounced what he called direct American pressure on the court, while Pope's lawyer suggested the Russian secret service had conducted medical tests on his client.
The trial was halted Friday after Pope, who has bone cancer, complained of back and joint pains.
He underwent medical tests at a Kremlin hospital after which a doctor from Lefortovo prison, where Pope is being held, ruled he was well enough for the trial to continue, a spokesman for the security services (FSB) said.
Speaking to the press before entering court, his lawyer Pavel Astakhov said "unknown forces carried out so-called medical examinations."
"They committed a gross violation of the legislation. There is no decision made by the court in this direction," Astakhov said.
The court ignored several requests by the defense seeking the opinion of a medical expert.
"A counter-espionage department substituted itself for the justice system," he said. "We can not take these tests seriously."
In an interview with the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda Saturday, the prosecutor said "the fact that the American Congress, the Secretary of State (Madeleine) Albright and President (Bill) Clinton are so preoccupied by Mr Pope makes it hard to believe that he is a simple owner of a small firm."
"In my opinion he is a professional spy," Plotnikov said.
Albright on Friday again pushed her Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov with US demands for Pope to be released immediately.
She made the call as the court suspended proceedings for a second time due to Pope's recurrence of acute back and joint pains, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"She's been pressing the case that his medical condition needs to be attended to," Boucher said. "She's been pressing the issue that we've seen no evidence that would indicate he's guilty of anything and we think he should be released."
He said that in addition to Albright's frequent discussions of the case with Ivanov and Clinton's raising of the matter with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott had spoken about Pope with Russia's ambassador in Washington.
Also, the third highest ranking US diplomat, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering, was talking about Pope with Russia's UN ambassador in New York, Boucher said.
Pope, 54, who was arrested in April, went on trial on October 20 charged with buying secret designs for Russia's high-speed Shkval torpedo system and faces up to 20 years jail if convicted.
He admits paying for a number of designs and technical details involving the system but insists he acted legally, and that his company was interested in civilian applications of the technology – MOSCOW (AFP)
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