"The comment is attributed to some judge," said Pavlov, casually reclining on the bed in his Moscow hotel room.

"He said this: "If I can't send an innocent man to jail, then I sentence him to probation." Pavlov lets the dark resonance of the comment hang for a moment before he energetically springs to explain the implications — if you can't find a man innocent in this legal system, then you have to sentence him to something.

"And this applies to Pasko," said Pavlov, whose client was staring down a 20-year stretch for espionage when he was sentenced to four years last December. "They gave him three times below the minimum penalty for espionage because he is innocent — innocent."

Pavlov himself is young, but also wise beyond his years — partly thanks to the arduousness of the Pasko case, and he is capable at once of youthful pop-culture references and quotations from the Bible and allusions to Russian history. Energetic in mind and body, he has come from his native St Petersburg for the appeal to not only free his client, but, as much as possible, to avenge those who convicted him in the first place.

"This is not a case that belongs in the year 2002," said Ragnhild Astrup Tchudi of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights at a press conference Monday.

"It is a chilling reminder of earlier times — illegal searches, secret decrees — these violations of the fundamental principles of the European Convention on Human Rights."

On Tuesday, the case of Grigory Pasko will be heard in appeal by the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court, though the defendant himself will not be present — a decision taken by his lawyers to avoid the 10-day train trip from his prison in Vladivostok and the stop-over jails Pasko would be forced to endure to attend the Moscow appeal.

If the appeal is successful, Pasko will be free. If it is not, he will be forced to serve his four-year sentence while Bellona and other rights groups try to obtain justice at the Council of Europe courts.

Grigory Pasko in front of the Military Court building in Vladivostok.

Victor Tereshkin

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, maintained that Pasko had intended to pass this information, which allegedly concerned "secret naval manoeuvres," to the Japanese media — though he was never accused of actually having done so. He was, in other words, convicted for allegedly harbouring the notion of giving these notes to the Japanese.

"Even the verdict of the Pacific Fleet court confirms he did not disclose any state secrets," said Bellona's Jon Gauslaa at the Monday press conference.

"He was convicted for the thoughts he allegedly had in his head."

In 1999, the same court had convicted Pasko of negligence for passing films to Japanese TV journalists of Russian Pacific Fleet ships illegally dumping nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan. Pasko was subsequently amnestied by Russia's Supreme Court, but appealed the decision based on the notion that an innocent man cannot be amnestied.

The unexpected result was a new trial and a conviction on fresh charges of treason, which Pavlov, Bellona, the US-based Sierra Club, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the European Union, Amnesty International — and at least 23,000 individuals who have sent letters to the Kremlin in Pasko's defence — maintain were fabricated by the FSB and relied heavily on two spurious Defence Ministry decrees.

Even Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov and Deputy Prime Minister for social issues, Valentina Matviyenko — both allies to President Vladimir Putin — spoke out against the December verdict, and dangled the notion of a pardon, which Pasko flatly refused.

One of these Defence Ministry decrees — which forbid military officers from fraternizing with foreigners — was abolished by the Supreme Court in May. The other, known as order No. 055, lays out broad terms for items that could be considered state secrets. Information deemed a threat to national security under the decree includes reporting on the loss of military hardware or battlefield casualties, technical problems of naval vessels and any information concerning radiation accidents aboard Russian vessels. Decree No. 055 was determined at the same day in May not to have the force of law.

Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov.

photo: RIA NEWS

According to text transcripts of several telephone conversations between Pasko and his Japanese media contacts — which the prosecution says proves intent to pass off secret information — Pasko can be heard, according to Pavlov, taking down mundane directions from the airport to his Japanese colleagues' home.

For their part, one Japanese journalist sent more detailed directions via the Internet.

"For a Russian citizen, or any citizen without knowledge of the Japanese alphabet, it would be a little hard to navigate Japan," Pavlov said.

Becoming animated again, Pavlov said that Pasko was living under an FSB "bell jar, like those people on Za Steklom," or Behind the Glass, a popular "reality" television programme on Moscow's TVS, in which the on-screen participants are filmed 24 hours a day.

"Pasko was watched like a regular TV show, except the viewers where the security services — yes they followed him, yes they listened to him, yes, they checked all his mail — every one of his steps was under the control of the FSB," Pavlov said.

"He didn't even tell anyone that he had been to this meeting of naval brass," according to the transcript, Pavlov said. As such, said Pavlov, the notion that Pasko intended to pass these notes — which had been in his possession for months — to anyone is absurd.

Pasko convicted in Vladivostok in December 2001.

photo: Victor Tereshkin

"Prognoses are a thankless business," said Pavlov, "all the more so because Pasko should have been found innocent on Dec. 25."

According to Pavlov, a month's recess last year was enough time for the secret services to go to work on the judges in a case that by all indications was a sure victory for the defence. As a result of this interference from the secret services, Pasko was found guilty on two charges — related to the nullified Defence Ministry decrees — out of a possible 60 counts of espionage.

"Obviously, if they wanted to convict him as a spy, he would have been found guilty on more counts," said Pavlov. "This to me proves that someone got to the judges and convinced them to bring in at least some sort of conviction."

Ivan Pavlov and Jon Gauslaa outside the building of the Russian Supreme Court.

Vladislav Nikiforov/Bellona

As for Tuesday's appeal, Pavlov said that "the decision is already made. I have no doubt — it's the usual practice that when they appoint a judge he already knows the case. I am sure that they have studied all our arguments."

"But if you put our arguments on one side of the scale and the arguments of our opponents on the other," Pavlov continued, "ours will outweigh. But if on the other side of that scale is some kind of governmental or ministerial expediency, then this expediency [to jail Pasko] will win out."

Even with the public utterances of Mironov and Matviyenko, Pavlov said that for them to follow through on their initial words would have to take "incredible political courage" in a state slowly reverting to the rule of the security services.

"Big thanks to [Mironov and Matviyenko] for that but we are not awaiting help," said Pavlov. "We know they want to help, but the only thing that can help us is an honest court, which will weigh all the arguments."

Pavlov added that the judge will be keeping his ears open for hints, and those hints won't be coming from Mironov or Matviyenko. "[The judge] will be hearing hints from people who can put pressure on him."

Is acquittal enough
Even if the Supreme Court frees Pasko on Tuesday, Pavlov has doubts that that would be ample restitution for what his client has been through.

"Of course Pasko must be exonerated, but? to be so slandered and insulted by these convictions of Dec. 25, the decision to exonerate Pasko, free him from jail appears to me too little," said Pavlov.

"I don't want blood, but I think the people that trumped this up must be punished — but as practice shows, these people get promotions. These people are needed by the state, this state, and because of this, in my view, we have no future, we are not developing."

In Pavlov's view, Russia, as evidenced by incidents like the Pasko case, is on an aimless journey.

"Russia is trying to change, but Moses led his people through the desert for 40 years to escape slavery," he said. "But Russia isn't 40 yet, and isn't wandering in the desert — it's marinating in its own juices [?] They are attempting to hang the Iron Curtain again — the last ten years have taught us nothing."