Two others accused of being Russian agents have admitted they lived under false identities, according to prosecutors. This comes as bail hearings are underway in a court in the Washington, DC suburb of Alexandria.
Three of the defendants have appeared in court in Alexandria. And prosecutors say two of them – a married couple known by the names Michael Zottolii and Patricia Mills, acknowledged they had false identities.
Their real names reportedly are Mikhail Kutsik and Natalya Pereverzeva. Prosecutors say they’ve found $100,000 stashed in their safe deposit boxes.
Investigative journalist and former intelligence officer Wayne Madsen says the whole case against the so-called spies could be a hoax.
“The government is saying they’ve got fake passports, cash, and we are told they have confessions by some of these accused,” Madsen told RT. “When the government seizes drugs, we are often shown photographs of the drug cache. If it’s seizure of weapons, we’re shown photos. We have not been shown any photos of this smoking gun evidence, so we’ve been told – well, trust us, we’re the government.”
“We have to always recognize the fact that they may be forcing confessions – apparently, no attorneys were present when these confessions were made – and manufacturing evidence,” the journalist added. “We know that they’d manufactured evidence to get us in the war with Iraq – the “yellowcake” uranium documents. So if we can not believe the government on major issue like going to war, how can we be expected to believe in the government when it says that “we’ve seized all this evidence?”