美抓获10名俄国间谍 俄外长怒讨说法

美国司法部6月28日发表声明称，11名被告因在美国境内为俄罗斯从事与间谍有关的非法活动而遭起诉，其中10人已被逮捕。当中一位红发美女特别引人注目：她拥有一头红发、丰满身材、经济硕士学位，堪称美丽与智慧并重。 而此案距俄罗斯总统梅德韦杰夫24号访美前后不到一周，难怪俄外长拉夫罗夫无不讽刺地说道：“时机的选择特别得体。”

Russia's foreign ministry said the US allegations are "baseless" and a throwback to the Cold War.

However, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the move was a law-enforcement matter and that the authorities involved "acted appropriately".

"I think we have made a new start to working together on things like in the United Nations dealing with North Korea and Iran," Mr Gibbs said of the relationship between the two countries.

"I do not think that this will affect those relations."

He confirmed President Obama was "fully and appropriately" informed about the matter and was aware of the investigation before he met President Dmitri Medvedev(梅德韦杰夫) last week. However the two leaders did not discuss the issue.

The diplomatic statements followed the arrest of 10 people in America on Monday suspected of spying for Russia for as long as a decade.

The FBI said the men and women were thought to have served as secret agents on deep-cover assignments for Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR.

The office of President Medvedev originally said it was not protocol for them to comment on the arrests because they regarded it an American issue and no Russian citizens were involved.

However, Russia has since admitted that the 10 suspects, several of them married couples, are indeed Russian citizens, but maintains they were not working against US interests.

America's old Cold War foe has now urged the US to allow the arrested Russians access to lawyers and diplomats and prime minister Vladimir Putin has attempted to calm the situation.

The former spy has said he hopes the arrests will not reverse the positive gains in US-Russia relations.

But foreign ministry official Andrei Nesterenko has questioned the timing of the arrests.

He said: "We do not understand the reasons why the US Department of Justice has made a public statement in the spirit of the Cold War.

"In any case, it is regrettable that all these things are happening on the background of the 'reset' in Russian-US relations announced by the US administration."

Five of the accused have appeared in a New York court, where it was alleged their mission was to make ties within policy-making circles and find out about arms control and nuclear weapons.

US authorities charged 11 people with the plot following the 10 arrests in Boston, New York, New Jersey and Virginia on Sunday

The 11th suspect, Robert Metsos, 55, was captured in Cyprus on Tuesday and released on bail ahead of an extradition hearing.

The charges against the suspects include conspiracy to act as unlawful agents of the Russian Federation and money laundering.

The group allegedly assumed false identities in the US under orders of the SVR.

Their goal was to "become sufficiently 'Americanised' such that they could… successfully recruit sources who are in, or are able to infiltrate, United States policy-making circles", according to criminal complaints filed in the US.

But they were not assigned to collect classified secret information, a justice department official said.

Most are believed to be originally from Russia and had been trained to secretly infiltrate America.

Political analyst Andrei Kortunov, of Moscow's New Eurasia Foundation, said: "If they are undercover spies, their Russian passports will be in a safe here in Russia.

"The accusations at this point are only criminal violations - fake passports, money laundering."

Some of the alleged spies were thought to have been under cover since the early 1990s, with eight living as couples with ordinary lives in the US suburbs.

They even had children, brought up as Americans who were seemingly unaware of their Russian roots.

The so-called sleeper agents allegedly communicated by various methods - including secret data embedded in images on public websites, short-range wireless between laptop computers and coded radiograms set at special frequencies.

Court papers claimed suspect Tracey Lee Ann Foley, who was arrested in Boston, had even travelled on a "fraudulent British passport prepared for her by the SVR".

The British Foreign Office has since confirmed it is investigating the allegation alongside US authorities.

Another suspect - Richard Murphy - was also said to have used a fake Irish passport.

He was allegedly told by his handlers to travel from the US to Rome where he would be given the forged documents.

Note：
sleeper agents ：潜伏特工
例如：
It may have sleeper agents in Kenya and even in Britain.
它在肯尼亚甚至在英国都可能有潜伏特工。