London

Piontkovski: fears a charge of espionage.

Ukraine's secret services have widened their investigation into staff at the Institute of Biology of Southern Seas (IBSS), following the arrest of marine biologist Sergei Piontkovski on charges of sending ‘secret’ information abroad and handling foreign currency illegally. Meanwhile a growing number of international organizations have protested about the action (see Nature 401, 835; 1999).

Ten IBSS staff have now been questioned by Sebastopol security services (USBU). All were participants in either a UK-funded Darwin Initiative project or a European-funded INTAS project. The grants from these projects, for the collection of biodiversity data, appear to be the focus of the intelligence operation. INTAS says other grant recipients in southern Ukraine have been asked to report to USBU.

INTAS, which promotes cooperation with scientists from the independent states of the former Soviet Union, said last week that it was “shocked” at Piontkovski's detention. The Ukrainian Ministry of Science and INTAS have confirmed that Piontkovski's work was done in agreement with the Ukrainian government and in accordance with the law. An official reaction from the government is still awaited.

Elisa Muñoz, of the committee on scientific freedom and responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says she will ask the committee's network of scientists to write to the Ukrainian authorities to request Piontkovski's unconditional release.

The European Commission has requested an explanation from the same authorities, and the International Council for Science's committee on oceanic research is writing to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.

A friend of Piontkovski's has set up a website on the case (http://www.geocities.com/sep_case/). On it, a fax from the Ukrainian science ministry to the head of the security services warns that the action could have “negative consequences for the international scientific collaboration of Ukraine”.

Piontkovski was held in USBU offices for four days and subjected to interrogations that he says were “long term and with unpleasant dialogue with a lot of threats that [the charge] would fall into the category of espionage actions”.