Ernest Vardanyan gets 15 years in prison

Transdnestrian Supreme Court has sentenced Ernest Vardanyan to 15 years in prison, RIA Novosti reported.

Vardanyan is a Transdnestrian journalist of Armenian origin who was arrested by the local security forces on April 7 this year on suspicion of spying for Moldova.

Viktor Osipova, the deputy prime minister of Moldova, said that the government of Moldova did its best to help Vardanyan - but yet to no avail.

"But, unfortunately, the authorities in Tiraspol decided to precede with the case, so that to reach the limits of insinuation and legal mystifications," said he.

Earlier, in a televised video address Vardanyan had confessed to the crime. Particularly, he admitted he had been recruited by the Moldavian Security and Information Service (SIS) while studying at Chisinau State University in 2001. He also said that SIS officials had insinuated that he and his wife would face problems with their continued studies in Moldova if he refused.

"I agreed to cooperate with SIS and now I realize I made a big mistake," Vardanyan had said.

Vardanyan said he kept on spying for Moldova after graduating from university and finding work as a journalist in his homeland. He gathered information on Transdnestrian domestic policy, and personally met with top officials, whom he said were sometimes "too trusting".

However, after getting a job at the UN secretariat in 2009, Vardanyan attempted to put an end to his spying career.

"When I told my recruiter Nikolai Botezatu about my forthcoming work at the UN, he said we would not end our cooperation," the journalist said adding that after arriving in New York he continued spying on other countries, especially Russia.