You're reading: Germany charges 2 alleged Russian spies

Moscow - The relatives of Russian citizens Alexander Shadrov and Vladimir Dolgov, who were convicted in Libya for assisting the Gaddafi regime in June 2012, have asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene in the situation, Izvestiya reported on Thursday. 

Taisiya Shilova, the wife of Vladimir Dolgov, told Izvestiya she has had to turn to the president because she is in a deadlock situation and has not heard from her husband for a long time.

“No one knows when the appeal will be considered. The date is always being postponed. The issue of Volodya’s deportation to Russia is no longer even being raised. Vladimir Vladimirovich, I am asking you as the guarantor of the Constitution and the defender of the people of Russia to give the necessary instructions on the deportation of my husband Vladimir Dolgov to the Russian Federation. I have no one else to hope for but you. Only you can bring me my husband back and bring my children and grandchildren their loving father and grandfather back,” Shilova said in her address to Putin.

“The embassy is not contacting us. The only people helping the prisoners are Ukrainian nurses working at a local hospital,” Shadrov’s wife Olga told Izvestiya.

Olga said the convicted Russians have developed serious health problems, but the Russian consults are visiting them rarely.

In the meantime, the Ukrainian consuls who visit the detained Ukrainians are constantly fuelling tensions, blaming the Russians for everything, she said. “They are saying openly that they are all in jail because of Shadrov,” she said.

The woman said it is not clear when the appeal will be considered either. “There has to be a lawyer for an appeal, but the Russian authorities have not even bothered to hire one. The lawyer who represented the Russian in the Libyan court was hired by the Ukrainians,” she said.

The Russian consulate in Libya told Izvestiya said the Russians have lawyers and they visit them regularly.

“The hearing of the appeal is constantly being postponed by the Libyans. Initially it was scheduled for late June, then it was rescheduled for late August, and now the hearing has been postponed indefinitely,” the diplomatic mission said.

State Duma deputies intend to get involved in the situation of the Russians convicted in Libya. Yan Zelinsky a member of the State Duma committee on international affairs, told Izvestiya he intends to raise the issue in the committee’s meeting in the nearest future.

On August 27, 2011, the Libyan rebel battalion Kakaa detained Russian citizens Vladimir Dolgov and Alexander Shadrov and some citizens of Ukraine and Belarus (25 people all in all). The people were charged with having restored military equipment used by the Gaddafi regime “to destroy the people of Libya.”