Russian spies ordered deported

Ten Russian agents who infiltrated suburban America and acted as spies for Moscow were deported Thursday after admitting their crimes.

The spies left New York for Moscow hours after pleading guilty to conspiracy in a Manhattan courtroom and being sentenced to time served and ordered out of the country, said a law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record.

The spies were to be exchanged for four people convicted of betraying Moscow to the West in the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

The 10 defendants, many speaking in heavy Russian accents despite having spent years posing as U.S. citizens, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in a Manhattan courtroom, were sentenced to time served and ordered out of the country.

The swap carries significant consequences for efforts between Washington and Moscow to repair ties chilled by a deepening atmosphere of suspicion.

Thedefendants, captured last week in suburban homes across the Northeast, were accused of embedding themselves in ordinary American life for more than a decade while leading double lives complete with false passports, secret code words, fake names, invisible ink and encrypted radio.

One worked for an accounting firm, another was a real estate agent, another a columnist for a Spanish-language newspaper.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the "extraordinary" case took years of work, "and the agreement we reached today provides a successful resolution for the United States and its interests."

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said on PBS's NewsHour that President Barack Obama had made the decision to go forward with the arrests.

But whether the defendants provided Russia with valuable secret information is questionable.

"None of the people involved from my understanding provided any information that couldn't be obtained on the internet," Chapman's attorney, Robert Baum, told The Associated Press.

In Russia, the Kremlin said President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree pardoning four convicted foreign spies so that they can be exchanged for the 10 U.S. defendants.

The Kremlin statement carried by the Russian news agencies says that Medvedev has pardoned Russian citizens Alexander Zaporozhsky, Gennady Vasilenko, Sergei Skripal and Igor Sutyagin.

Sutyagin, an arms analyst, was reportedly plucked from a Moscow prison and put on a plane to Vienna. Skripal is a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, and Zaporozhsky is a former colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also issued a statement saying that the exchange being conducted by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service and the CIA was conducted in the context of "overall improvement of the U.S.-Russian ties and giving them new dynamics."

An Obama administration official said the quick and pragmatic arrangement of the spy swap with Russia speaks to the progress that has been made in U.S.-Russian relations.

The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the deal, said that by shutting down the spy operation, the U.S. sent a warning to other governments that might be interested in undertaking similar spy operations.

The U.S. Justice Department said in a letter Thursday that some of the four prisoners are in poor health and had served lengthy prison terms. Three of the four were accused by Russia of contacting Western intelligence agencies while they were working for the Russian or Soviet government, the letter stated.

The 10 suburban spies pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country and were ordered deported.

An 11th defendant has been a fugitive since fleeing authorities in Cyprus following his release on bail.

One defendant's attorney said a private plane was expected to take the 10 to Russia within days.

The defendants led into court in handcuffs, some in prison smocks and some wearing T-shirts and jeans provided almost no information about what kind of spying they actually did for Russia.

Asked to describe their crimes, each acknowledged having worked for Russia secretly, sometimes under an assumed identity, without registering as a foreign agent.

Defendant Anna Chapman whose sultry photos gleaned from social-networking sites made her a tabloid sensation pulled back her mane of red hair as she glanced around the courtroom. A burly deputy U.S. marshal hovered behind her.

All the defendants stood and raised their right hands in unison to be sworn in before answering a series of questions from the judge, beginning with a request to state their true identities. Their answers were short and scripted, their 10 guilty pleas given one by one in assembly-line precision.

The 10 Russian agents freed by the United States are unlikely to be greeted as heroes in Russia, as the Kremlin willprobably try to turn the page quickly over the embarrassing incident and avoid further damage in relations with Washington.

Independent newspapers and liberal commentators in Russia have chafed at the obvious lack of results of the spy ring work and ridiculedthe low levelof their training.