Anatoly Sharansky: Death For Spying For the United States

4.2.12 WC: 191694 Anatoly Sharansky: Death For Spying For the United States Other potential death cases raised issues not of science, but of politics, diplomacy and economics. The case that combined these elements also involved the client with whom I most closely identified personally. He was a Soviet Jew who I never even met during the years I was fighting to save his life. His name (at the time) was Anatoly Sharansky (now Natan Sharansky). Sharansky was a prominent and vocal defender of human rights, not only of his fellow Soviet Jews but of all victims of Soviet oppression. He worked closely with Andrei Saklarov, the father of the Soviet nuclear weapons program who had become the leading voice for human rights in the Soviet Union. Sharansky was arrested by the Soviet KGB in 2003 [check] on charges of spying for the United States—a charge that carried the death penalty. I had previously represented two Jewish Refusenicks who had tried to steal a small airplane in which to escape to Israel, via Sweden. They had been sentenced to death, so I knew that the threat of capital punishment against Sharansky was real. Their death sentences against were later reversed and they were eventually allowed to emigrate to Israel. But there was no assurance that similar efforts would help Sharansky, who faced the more serious charge of spying for an enemy. I had been asked, along with Canadian law professor Irwin Cotler, to represent Sharanksy. The request came from his wife, who was in Israel, and his mother, who lived in Moscow. They had no money to pay for a lawyer. We agreed to do what we could to save his life and, hopefully, secure his freedom. Our first job was to try to get the espionage charge dropped, since that was the one that carried the death sentence. Because Sharanksy was accused of spying for the United States, I decided to go directly to the White House to try to persuade President Carter to issue a statement expressly denying the Soviet charge that Sharansky had been a CIA operative. We faced great pressure from the CIA to continue the longstanding American policy of never affirming or denying anyone’s alleged association with the agency. But after several requests, President Carter did issue the following statement: I have inquired deeply within the State Department and within the CIA, as to whether or not Mr. Sharanksy has ever had any known relationship in a subversive way, or otherwise, with the CIA. The answer is “no.” We have double-checked this, and I have been hesitant to make that public announcement, but now I am completely convinced. Shortly after President Carter made his unprecedented statement, the Soviet prosecutors dropped the espionage charge and took the death penalty off the table. But they were still determined to see Sharansky die in prison. The Soviets called it “special regime” imprisonment, consisting of a diet that no one could long survive. The prisoners called it “death on the installment plan.” Sharansky’s wife pleaded with me to get him out of prison before he starved to death and before she was too old to have children. We had saved him from execution; now we had to save him from starvation. We had our work cut out for us. 204 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017291