Convicted U.S. spy arrives in Germany

MOSCOW, Russia -- Convicted U.S. spy Edmond Pope has arrived in the Frankfurt area after being released by the Russian authorities from a 20-year jail sentence.

Russia President Vladimir Putin, who is in Cuba, acted as soon as he could to release Pope, citing the U.S. citizen's poor health and the importance of U.S.-Russian relations in his mercy decision.

Pope, who has bone cancer and whose father is ill, said it felt "great to be back in the real world" after arriving at a U.S. military base in Germany.

He will be checked by doctors before returning home to the United States, said U.S. embassy official June Kunsman in Moscow.

"It's great. I feel great. I feel good," a pale and visibly tired Pope said from a balcony at the U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl, where he had been flown on a specially chartered jet after Putin's pardon.

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U.S. President Bill Clinton, on a visit to Britain, thanked Putin for releasing Pope while insisting the ordeal suffered by the former naval intelligence officer was unjustified.

"I welcome today's release of Edmond Pope after eight months of detention in Russia and appreciate President Putin's decision to pardon Mr Pope," Clinton said in a written statement.

"Mr Pope's ordeal was unjustified. It is fortunate that humanitarian considerations prevailed in the end," he added.

The decision was a relief for Pope's wife and family, who had feared that the rare form of cancer from which he suffers would re-emerge while he was in prison.

Putin freed Pope from the 20-year sentence for espionage on the first day he could legally issue the pardon after a presidential commission recommended Pope's release last week.

"This act of mercy towards Edmond Pope cannot be overestimated," Pope's Russian lawyer Pavel Astakhov told NTV independent television in Moscow as the U.S. citizen flew to Germany with his wife, Cheri.

White House National Security Adviser P.J. Crowley said the fact that Pope was on his way home was reason enough to be pleased.

"It was something the president brought up repeatedly in their meetings this year and obviously it's something that President Putin has now put behind us."

The FSB domestic security service said the decree announcing his release was read to Pope in a cell in the prison where he has been held since his arrest by the FSB in April.

Prison officials returned Pope's belongings to him and he immediately left for Moscow's international airport.

Pope, who went into business after leaving naval intelligence, denied the charges of spying and trying to obtain secrets about a high-speed Russian torpedo. But a Russian court last week sentenced him to the maximum 20 years in jail.

Pope said he was researching material already openly available. He was the first Westerner convicted of spying since the Cold War.

A Russian presidential commission recommended his release days after the sentence was handed down, but Putin could not issue the decree until the sentence came into effect on December 14.

"Being guided by principles of humanity, taking into account the health condition of the convict and his personal appeal and based on the high level of relations between the Russian Federation and the United States of America, I order the pardon of Pope, Edmond Dean," Putin's decree said.

The FSB spokesman said Pope had left the jail in good health, thanking staff for maintaining conditions of imprisonment which, the FSB quoted Pope as saying, were at the level of international standards.

Putin had publicly promised Clinton he would free the businessman and the FSB said the pardon decree had been signed on Wednesday evening, before Putin left Moscow for a visit to Cuba and Canada.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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