Last month, Dmitry Kolker, 54, director of the Laboratory of Quantum Optics at Novosibirsk State University, was dealing with late-stage pancreatic cancer. But on 30 June, agents with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) removed him from a cancer clinic, flew him to Moscow, and detained him on charges of treason. By 2 July, he was dead. His family learned of his fate via a curt telegram.Kolker's colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) expressed outrage. A group of RAS members signed an open letter protesting FSB's handling of the case and called for "those guilty of our colleague's death to be held accountable." Kolker's family told local media he was accused of leaking state secrets to China. But the RAS group posted a photo of an expert report from an RAS institute concluding that optics lectures Kolker gave in China in 2018 included no classified information.
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