‘Putin is seeing spies everywhere’: Top Russian scientist dies two days after being pulled out of cancer bed and jailed for ‘treason’ as family claims he was ‘tortured’ by security service
Quantum physics prof dies 48h after being dragged out of cancer bed and jailed
Dr Dmitry Kolker, 54, was flown four hours across Russia and accused of treason
Kolker’s family claim Putin security service ‘tortured’ the leading laser scientist
Dr Kolker’s family accused the FSB of ‘torture’ and abusing the doctor’s human rights by pulling him out of his death bed. He had stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
The FSB claimed it had medical authorisation to unplug him from his hospital drip and lock him up as part of a major spy probe.
The scientist was accused of leading a pro-China spy ring alongside Professor Anatoly Maslov, 75, a hypersonic technologies teacher.
Maslov remains in Lefortovo, which became famous during Stalin’s Great Purge of political opponents, businessmen and scientists.
Top scientists were officially urged to collaborate with top foreign partners [and] did so.
‘Now they are being accused of espionage.’
Dr Kolker was head of Novosibirsk State University’s quantum optical technologies laboratory.
A slim-looking Kolker is pictured in a recent photo shortly before his fatal detainment
+10
View gallery
A slim-looking Kolker is pictured in a recent photo shortly before his fatal detainment
He was regarded as a world expert on lasers, having previously collaborated with the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxford.
Kolker was too ill for chemotherapy when he was detained.
His daughter Alina Mironova, 29, said after his arrest in late June: ‘Our family is going through total hell.
This doesn't mitigate the horridness of their behavior, but they might have just done him a favor.