UKRAINIAN MARINE SCIENTISTS UNDER SBU (KGB) REPRESSION
Marine Biologist (GLOBEC Scientific Steering Committee Member) and his colleagues from IBSS has been accused in transfer scientific information from Ukraine to the West
To all scienticts:
Dear colleagues,
In the middle of the October the Sevastopol Branch of the Security Service of the Ukraine - SBU (i.e. Ukrainian KGB) started an investigation of the so called "Scientists-Spy Case".
They have arrested and confiscated computers and records from several scientists who are working at the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas (IBSS), National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Sevastopol, Crimea as well as personal documents, private computers and all valubles and cash they can found in the people's places...
We have got a numbers of letters from our colleagues in Sevastopol, Ukraine. In their letters they appeal for any possible support from international scientific community.
Many of you have already sent your letters to the officials in Ukraine and our friends in Sevastopol are very grateful to you for that.
To all hands
Dear colleagues and friends,
At last, I am in the US. I landed with the family, a day ago, with a great belief that the nightmare (that happened to me) is over. I have gon through "the last KGB farevell" at the depature and was happy to be welcomed by my colleagues at SUNY (Stony Brook). A lot of emails arrive with your congratulations. I have to say that I am OK. I will be looking for a job and I will do my best to support my colleagues in Ukraine, willing to contribute to the development of international cooperation in marine biology and free data exchange. We have to watch closely what should happened in Ukraine in the next months, in terms of ongoing cooperation projects funded by US, and European Union.
I greatly appreciate your care, and your enomous support. We won this fight because we were together.
Friendly yours,
Sergey Piontkovski
MSRC, State University of New York, Stony Brook,
NY 11794-5000
Tel. (516) 632-8694
spiontkovski@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Terrific news: 23 March, 2000!
New
Dear All,
Apparently Sergey has overcome his problems and is now in Stony Brook. What a relief! This is in reply to a note of concern I sent to him earlier today and to request for more information in preparation for another battle on his behalf. I will pass on the details when he has time to send them.
Thank you all for your support and terrific efforts in this situation.
Please pass this on to others I may have missed.
Liz
>Return-path: <spiontkovski@notes.cc.sunysb.edu>
>Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:48:42 -0500
>From: spiontkovski@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
>Subject: Re: hi from Sergey
>To: Liz Gross <scor@jhu.edu>
>Bcc:
>X-MIMETrack: Serialize by Router on nmta.cc.sunysb.edu/DoIT(Release 5.0.2b
> |December 16, 1999) at 03/22/2000 02:48:46 PM
>Original-recipient: rfc822;scor@jhu.edu
>
>
>Liz, my problems are ower. Yesterdy I arrived to Stony Brook.
>I will write you again in the next several days. I have to find a place to leave temporarly at the moment.
>Best regards and thanks for your care.
>Sergey
Dear Fiends, BAD NEWS:
I am sorry to bring you this time the bad news. As Sergey was afraid, SBU did its trick at the last moment.
It is half past midnight here in New York. I just talked to Sergey. He is still in Kyiv. Yesterday, on Saturday, Sergey with his family was not allowed to take KLM flight to New York via Amsterdam. The passport control officials (border patrol guards) told Sergey that they have orders to detain him if he will try to leave the country. They did not
say who gave the order. No explanations were given. The KLM plane was not allowed to leave until their baggage was removed. After 5 long hours and numerous telephone calls to SBU by border control guards, he and his family were released from the detention without explanations. Sergey asked to convey to you the news about these latest developments so you can post it on the SEP_CASE Web site.
Dmitriy
New
Great News!
Sergey was officially informed that his case is dismissed. He was given his passport and is free to leave. He was told that he will received his money back on Monday. They will leave Ukraine as soon as they can. It could happened even next week. However, they are concerned that SBU at the last moment may do another trick because SBU already began a new investigation of scientists from his Institute and therefore may bring new charges against Sergey.
So they are enormously relieved and asked me to spread this good news to everybody who knows and cares about them.
Dima. (Dmitry Goldgaber <dgoldgaber@mail.psychiatry.sunysb.edu> ) SUNY at Stony Brook
On February 11, 2000, the INTAS comission has visited Ukraine and has spoken to the Prosecutor in Sevastopol Mr. Karpeev. The comission expressed its concern regarding the Dr.Piontkovski's case and emphasized that implementing money transfers and payments to the project participants, Dr. Piontkovski acted correctly, in the framework of current instuctions to the project.
We expect the prosecutor's feedbacks in the next week.
35th European Marine Biology Symposium in Sevastopol (Sept. 2000) has been canceled by the President of EMBS because of the Piontkovsky' Case
Letter from the Directorate of IBSS to the Prosecutor, 12 Jan.2000: Rus, Eng.
Persons under investigation | Data under investigation | Papers published on these data (abstracts)
Projects under investigation: Joint Project on Marine Biodiversity (Darwin Initiative)
Letters from Sevastopol:
17 Oct.99 | 19 Oct.99(1) |
19 Oct.99(2) | 21 Oct.99 |