Court rejects former FSB officer's appeal

NIZHNY TAGIL, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - A court in Nizhny Tagil, the Urals region, rejected Thursday a parole appeal submitted by former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Mikhail Trepashkin, who was convicted of divulging state secrets.

"The court decided to reject Trepashkin's appeal to grant him parole," Judge Dmitri Ilyutik said.

A Moscow military court sentenced Trepashkin to four years in jail on May 19, 2004. From 1984 to 1997, when he was a KGB and later an FSB officer, he had made copies of internal documents and stored them at home, the court established.

Trepashkin was released on parole August 31, 2005 by a court in Nizhny Tagil, where he served 18 months of the four-year sentence in a labor camp. However, the Sverdlovsk regional court overruled the decision of the lower court and ordered the case be reviewed. Trepashkin was arrested in Moscow and sent back to a labor camp.