Joint Chiefs: Mother of 7 is a national security threat
Svetlana Davydova, the mother of seven whom police arrested last week on charges of treason, “jeopardized the effectiveness of measures to secure the border with Ukraine,” concludes a report by specialists of the Main Operations Directorate of Russia’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
According to Andrey Stebenev, Davydova’s lawyer, the Joint Chiefs have determined that she handed over state secrets to a foreign power, when she called the Ukrainian embassy in April 2014 to report a conversation she overheard aboard a bus about alleged Russian troop movements toward eastern Ukraine. The Joint Chiefs say Davydova’s information was accurate and classified, and “could have been used to harm Russian national security.”
Stebenev says his client will plead not guilty to charges of treason. Davydova acknowledges that she called the Ukrainian embassy in April 2014, but denies conveying any classified information that could have harmed Russia. Stebenev vowed to appeal Davydov’s arrest, despite what he says were her initial objections to “making noise in the media” and subjecting her children to “unnecessary psychological trauma.”
“We talked yesterday, and now I’m preparing a expert report to determine whether the information she conveyed, classified or not, could have harmed Russian national security,” said the lawyer.
- On January 30, human rights activist Zoya Svetova met with Davydova in Moscow, where she’s now in jail, to discuss replacing her lawyer with someone not provided by the state. Svetova cast doubt on Davydova’s current attorney, who had possibly lied to her about filing an appeal to free her from jail.
- On January 31, officials from child protective services visited Davydova’s home in Smolensk, after her arrest. Davydova’s children are currently in the custody of her sister and mother, while her husband is in Moscow.
- Also on January 31, newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an open letter to President Putin asking him to free Davydova from pretrial detention. The letter stresses Davydova’s age (37) and her seven children, the youngest of whom is only two-months-old and still nursing, as well as her lack of a criminal record and the unlikelihood that she would flee the country. (Davydova doesn’t even have a passport to travel abroad.) Several prominent Russian public figures have endorsed the letter, which now has more than 18,000 signatures on Novaya Gazeta’s website.
- On February 2, Davydova's two new laywers, Ivan Pavlov and Sergei Badamshin, finally filed an appeal with a Moscow court.