Putin says US jailing of Maria Butina 'outrage'

The 30-year-old Russian agent was sentenced to 18 months on Friday

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday made his first comments on a US court sentencing admitted Russian foreign agent Maria Butina to 18 months in prison, calling her treatment a travesty of justice, Reuters reported.

Putin said the sentence looked like an attempt by US law enforcement and judicial officials to save face.

"It's an outrage," Putin told reporters.

"It's not clear what she was convicted of or what crime she committed. I think it's a prime example of 'saving face'. They arrested her and put the girl in jail. But there was nothing on her, so in order not to look totally stupid they gave her, fixed her up, with an 18-month sentence to show that she was guilty of something," he said.

Russian Foreign Ministry also said in a statement that "the accusations brought against her, intended to influence the internal political process in the United States, are totally invented and fabricated".

"Our compatriot was condemned just because she is a Russian citizen," it added.

Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty last year to working as a Russian clandestine agent in the United States, was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a federal judge in Washington on Friday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan gave Butina credit for nine months of time served and ordered her deported as soon as her time is up.

"You have a future ahead of you. I wish you the best luck," the judge said.

Dressed in a dark blue pajamalike prison uniform, her long red hair pulled behind her shoulders, Butina's voice broke as she addressed the court in fluent, Russian-accented English.

She told the court she had only wanted to work toward better US-Russian relations and would have registered as a foreign agent if she had known it was required by law, Agence France-Presse reported.

"I came here to better my life to get a degree. I wished to mend relations while building my resume," she said. "It was for these actions and my own ignorance that I'm here," Butina told the judge.

She had admitted one count of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without registering－a so-called "espionagelite" charge the United States has used before against alleged Russian spies.

"It has never been my intention to harm American people, but I did so by not notifying your government. It has harmed my attempts to improve relations," she said. "I have three degrees, but now I'm a convicted felon with no money, no job and no freedom."

Butina, a 30-year-old American University graduate student, was arrested in July and accepted a deal with prosecutors in December.

Prosecutors said that although she worked openly and was not tied to any Russian intelligence agency, she was sending back reports to a high-level Russian government official and posed a threat to the US.

Xinhua and Agencies