WASHINGTON-State Department officials last week told Qualcomm Inc. that Russian authorities will not require technician Richard Bliss to return to Russia to face espionage charges.
Bliss, who was arrested Nov. 25 while working on a wireless local loop system in the southern Russian city of Rostov, was allowed to return home for Christmas.
The Associated Press quoted Vladimir Andreyev, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, as saying: “There is no need now for him to come back, but the investigation is going on and there might be a need for him to come back at some point.”
Qualcomm and the U.S. government have maintained the charges are baseless.
“Qualcomm will continue to exercise all available means to secure Richard’s complete exoneration,” said Irwin Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of San Diego based-Qualcomm. “As we have maintained since the onset of this matter,” stated Jacobs, “Richard is innocent of these charges. He was simply fulfilling Qualcomm’s contractual agreements to install and test an innovative wireless telecommunications system for our customer in Rostov.”
There is speculation that Russia, which depends heavily on Western capital, is trying gracefully to bow out of the international incident and would not have let Bliss go if it truly believed he was spy.
