Igor Sutyagin, a Russian scientist jailed for spying for the U.S., arrived in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Thursday, his lawyer said.
Anna Stavitskaya earlier said Sutyagin could be swapped for one of the ten suspected Russian spies detained in the U.S. in late June.
"Igor's father received a phone call at approximately 16:30 Moscow time, and he was told that he [Sutyagin] was seen getting off a plane in Vienna. An officer met him," she said.
Igor Sutyagin, a Russian arms control and nuclear weapons specialist, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Archangelsk, northwest Russia, in April 2004 for sharing state secrets with U.S. military intelligence.
Sutyagin's trial began in November 2003. The former head of the military technology and economics department at the Institute of the United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences was accused of passing classified information to a British firm, Alternative Futures.
According to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Alternative Futures was a cover company for U.S. intelligence and had nothing to do with scientific activities.
The lawyer representing Sutyagin said the prisoner has been sent from the Archangelsk penitentiary to Moscow's Lefortovo prison and could later be extradited to the United Kingdom.
MOSCOW, July 8 (RIA Novosti)
