Cancer-stricken US businessman Edmund Pope was to respond Monday to a 26-page charge sheet when his espionage trial resumed in a Moscow court.
The former US naval intelligence officer faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted of attempting to buy secret sketches of a high-speed torpedo and seeking information on weaponry from Russian scientists.
"Today Edmund Pope is due to make his statement which will be his answer to the charges presented on Friday," his lawyer Pavel Astakhov told reporters ahead of the hearing.
Astakhov said the defense would also lay five new petitions before the court, but did not elaborate.
Last week, the same Moscow court rejected three defense requests: to admit new evidence, record the closed-door hearings, and order a fresh medical examination of Pope in a top Moscow clinic.
Pope's trial and continued detention has further strained tense Russia-US relations, with Washington calling for his immediate release on humanitarian grounds.
The 53-year-old suffers from a rare form of bone cancer which is currently in remission, but supporters say they fear his continued incarceration could reactivate the illness.
Pope is the first US national to stand trial for espionage here since 1960, when Gary Powers' U2 spy plane was downed over the Soviet Union.
Powers was convicted but later exchanged for a Soviet agent working in the United States -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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