THE exchange of prisoners between Russia and the United States on an airport tarmac in Vienna on Friday was widely, and loosely, labelled a 'spy swap'. So it's worth pointing out that at least one of the four people Moscow freed strongly denies that he engaged in espionage. He has been described as a political prisoner by Amnesty International and the State Department. The case of Igor Sutyagin in no way resembles that of the 10 Russian agents the FBI arrested, who worked for the SVR intelligence service. Most lived under false identities and reported secretly to 'Moscow Centre', the spy service's headquarters. Mr Sutyagin, also a Russian citizen, was a defence analyst working for the Russian government's USA Canada Institute. He and his supervisors say he had no access to classified information. However, using open sources, he prepared reports on Russian weapons systems, one of which he sold to a western company.

In October 1999, Mr Sutyagin was arrested by the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB.... In 2001 a regional court ruled that the evidence against Mr Sutyagin was insufficient and dismissed the case. The regime responded by taking its charges to a more pliant judge in Moscow. In 2004 Mr Sutyagin was handed a 15-year prison sentence after a trial that human rights groups both in and outside of Russia called unfair. For much of the time since then the researcher, now 45, has been held in a Stalinist-era prison camp.... [It is] worth noting the difference in the treatment accorded the Russians in the United States and those in Moscow. Though no one disputes that those captured here were intelligence agents, they were held only briefly; on their return to Russia they will likely be feted as heroes. — (July 10)