Dmitry Kolkar, 54, a Russian laser scientist with a doctorate in physics and mathematics, died on Sunday, July 3, two days after he was arrested by FSB agents on espionage charges, his family said.

Kolkar died in the early hours of Saturday at a Moscow hospital that had been moved from a prison in the capital, his family said. The authorities’ message was published on social networks. Her daughter Alina Mironova wrote to the network Social VKontakte :

Dad died tonight. According to Telegram, he was admitted to the hospital on July 22, where he died at 2:40 a.m. This information was confirmed by the intensive care unit of the hospital. This is a great tragedy for our family.

1 in^is In July, the court of Novosibirsk, a large city in Siberia, arrested Dmitry Kolkar and remanded him for two months. A crime was charged under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.“High Treason”), Tass Agency writesAn offense punishable with imprisonment for 20 years.

Dmitry Kolkar, a Novosibirsk physicist detained by the FSB the day before, died in a pre-trial detention center https://t.co/h1Z3AS3u2a

— bbcrussian (@bbcrussian)

Dmitri Kolkar, a physicist from Novosibirsk, died. On June 30, he was arrested and jailed on charges of sedition… https://t.co/s121I2Ud5J

— brewerov (@Andrey Pivovarov)

His family says he was arrested by FSB agents at a clinic in Novosibirsk where he was being treated for terminal pancreatic cancer and transferred to Moscow despite his health condition. “The FSB killed my father, they knew what he was, but they took him from the hospital. Thank you my country!!! His family was not even allowed to say goodbye to him.Wrote on Sunday Maxime Kolker on VKontakte.

Allegedly working for China

Dimitri Kolkar conducted a laboratory “Quantum and Optical Technologies”, according to the Novosibirsk State University website. The son says he is suspected of espionage after giving lessons at an international conference in China.

At this conference, according to his son, Dmitry Kolkar was constantly accompanied by an FSB agent to avoid the dissemination of sensitive information. In Russia, scientists are regularly accused of espionage and sometimes convicted in highly controversial cases.

Tass Agency reported on Saturday that another researcher, Anatoly MaslovArrested in Novosibirsk and imprisoned in Moscow “High Treason”Suspected of passing classified information on hypersonic technology.