AUTHORITIES WANT HANSSEN TO REMAIN IN CUSTODY UNTIL TRIAL








WASHINGTON, March 5. /RIA Novosti correspondent Kirill Glebov/. Prosecution lawyers in the so-called "Hanssen case" want to keep former FBI man Robert Hanssen arrested for alleged spying for the Soviet Union and then Russia behind bars until his trial despite the frailty of charges levelled against him.


	The prosecution believes that the accusations against Hanssen "are too serious" and the danger of some kind of "release" from arrest too great. Ever since he was arrested on February 18, Hanssen has been kept at a location which is not named because of a spy mania in the USA. Both sides to the trial - the prosecution and the defence - agreed to move the date for preliminary hearing and the ultimate date for indictment until May 21. This, specialists believe, suits both sides.


	The postponement will allow authorities to delay for a time publication of proofs of Hanssen's spying, some of which are reported to be secret. The lawyers, on the other hand, will have more time for meetings with the accused and to study the prosecution material. This may give added chances to the defence to press for "cooperative pleading guilty", that is an accord under which the accused pleads guilty and cooperates with the prosecution in exchange for a milder sentence. But such a sentence may be imprisonment for life, as was the case with Ames.


	So far, as Hanssen's lawyer Plato Cacheris said last week, spokesmen for the US Attorney-General's Office have not yet suggested this. But, experts believe, that will be inevitable at some moment, since authorities need from Hanssen all the information on the damage he has done.