Edmond D. Pope (russian: link=no, Эдмонд Поуп) is a retired American

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way a ...

-turned-businessman, convicted by a

Russian court The Judiciary of Russia interprets and applies the law of Russia. It is defined under the Constitution and law with a hierarchical structure with the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court at the apex. The district courts are the primary crimina ...

in 2000 on charges of spying for the U.S.

Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...

(DIA). He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for buying up and smuggling classified

military equipment A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

out of the country as

scrap metal Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

. 253 days into his custody, Pope was

pardoned A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

by the newly elected Russian President

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

as US government claimed that Pope had a rare form of bone cancer. Pope has always maintained his innocence and continues to assert that the Russian authorities used him as a

scapegoat In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designate ...

for their broken system. In an interview with

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, Pope spoke of a plot by unspecified people in the US, as well as the KGB and the

Russian mafia Russian organized crime or Russian mafia (, ), otherwise known as Bratva (), is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The initialism OPG is Organized Criminal (''prestupnaya'' in Russian) Gr ...

, as a part of which Pope was being slowly poisoned in the Lefortovo Prison. Pope asserted that this was done with the hopes that he would eventually have to be transferred to a hospital, abducted on his way, and smuggled out of the country. Pope claims that Congressman

John E. Peterson John E. Peterson (born December 25, 1938) is an American Republican politician from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From 1997 to 2009, he represented the state's mainly rural and largely Republican 5th Congressional district in the U.S. Hous ...

and Pope's wife "learned of this plot and put a stop to it before it was carried out," for which he was grateful.

Book

A book recounting his experience was published in 2001.

References

Living people People of the Defense Intelligence Agency American spies Espionage in Russia Year of birth missing (living people) {{espionage-bio-stub

Book

See also

References