Pubdate: Tue, 27 Feb 2001
Source: BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright: 2001 BBC
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RUSSIA HOLDS US MAN IN DRUG BUST

A US citizen alleged to have links with the intelligence services has been 
arrested in Russia while buying drugs, the state security service said on 
Tuesday.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said John Edward Tobbin was seized in a 
cafe on 1 February, and that drugs had also been found in the flat he 
rented in the city of Voronezh, 475km (300 miles) south of Moscow.

They said he had been trained an a US intelligence centre, but this did not 
form part of the charge against him.

However, a US diplomatic source rejected any suggestion that Mr Tobbin, had 
worked as a spy and said he was "just out of college," aged 22 or 23.

The arrest comes at a time of heightened tension over alleged cases of 
espionage on both sides of the old Cold War divide.

Fulbright scholar

The FSB was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying: "Investigators 
studying Tobbin's case found out that before travelling to Russia he 
studied Russian at a US Defence Department college in Monterrey and 
received training at the Intelligence Centre in Fort Huachuka, Arizona."

The dean of foreign students at Voronezh State University, Zhanna Sokolova, 
said that Mr Tobbin had arrived in September 2000 on a prestigious 
Fulbright award, to study as a graduate student in political science.

She said that Mr Tobbin got into a fight in a cafe, and the police intervened.

"As we understand it, when they noticed there was no smell of alcohol, they 
searched him and found marijuana," she said.

A house search uncovered more of the drug, she said, and Mr Tobbin was 
detained after refusing a police summons.

Neither the US Embassy in Moscow, nor the local Fulbright programme office 
could immediately comment on the report.

The FSB said it had information that Mr Tobbin received access to work with 
secret documents in May 1997.

Perfect Russian

Ms Sokolova said he wanted to study changes in the mood of the Russian 
people, including their goals and hopes, over the last 10 years.

She added that his Russian was perfect.

On Monday the trial resumed in Moscow of a Russian academic accused of 
passing intelligence to a British company.

In the United States on 18 February an FBI agent was arrested on charges of 
spying for Russia.

On 30 January it was revealed that a Russian diplomat at the United Nations 
in New York had defected to the United States, in mysterious circumstances.

And on 6 December a Russian court found a US citizen, Edward Pope, guilty 
of espionage in the first case of its kind since 1960.
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