October 11, 2010 on 9:34 pm

The Russian arms researcher released from prison in a Cold War style spy swap has mixed feeling about the deal saying more of his colleagues had been freed.

He is Igor Sutyagin struggling to adjust to life in Britain as he was behind bars for 11 years. He had signed the confession that set the exchange into motion. He says he wished more people who have been arrested for the same reason should have been released.

Sutyagin, 45, was one of four Russians released in a dramatic exchange that followed the arrest of 10 deep-cover Russian agents operating in the United States. Sutyagin has said his signature was a part of “a very clear deal: honor for freedom.” He described the torment of being prisoner and the pain it had put its family through. He said he felt as if my relatives were somehow imprisoned with me and said he did not want to put other families through same pain. Sutyagin describes his arrest as some men from the security service showed up at his door saying they wanted to have a conversation. The conversation lasted for 10 years 8 months. Sutyagin, who worked for a British company known as Alternative Futures, was convicted in April 2004 following a series of trials which his defense lawyers claimed were marred by prosecutorial misconduct. Held at a series of facilities in the Ural Mountains region before being transferred to a maximum-security prison in the far northern city of Archangelsk.

He compared his predicament to a swimmer trapped under a sheet of ice, searching desperately for a hole through which to breathe.

That hole would be the old Russia which I left long ago.

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