The Tragic Story of Two Cold War CIA Agents: Abdula Osmanov and Fedor Sarantsev (Sarancev) ©

TIME magazine, December 31, 1951:

"Moscow's Tass news agency announced the execution of A. I. Osmanov and I. K. Sarantsev, said to have received "special training from U.S. intelligence officers in topography, the use of weapons and parachuting." Osmanov and Sarantsev, said Tass, had been flown from Greece in a U.S. plane and dropped in Moldavia last August, for the "organization of acts of diversion, terror and espionage," after which they were to have crossed the Soviet Armenian border and reported to U.S. intelligence officers at Kars, Turkey." 

Below are details of the story taken from published Soviet Union archives.

1. September 11, 1951

No. 329 

Top secret

To comrade STALIN

As you were informed, on the night of August 14-15 this year, spies were dropped from the plane by parachutes on the territory of the Moldavan SSR by American intelligence.

One of them, OSMANOV, was detained on August 15 this year at the Bendery station. OSMANOV testified that another spy had been dropped from the same plane.

As a result of the measures taken, on September 5 of this year in the city of Alma-Ata, while trying to get a lodging for the night in the house of a collective farmer, the second spy was detained - Sarantsev Fedor Kuzmich, born in 1926, a native of the village of Blagodatnoye, Akmola region, Russian, in 1943 was Mobilized into the Soviet Army and in December of the same year was captured by the Germans, after the war he refused to repatriate to the Soviet Union and stayed in the American zone of occupation of Germany... 

2. DECISION OF THE POLITBURO OF THE CC VKP (b) ON AMERICAN AGENTS OSMANOV AND SARANTSEV

December 18, 1951

Top secret

 

Question to the Ministry of State Security of the USSR

 

1. Instruct the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR to consider on December 18 the case of American spies, saboteurs, terrorists A.I. Osmanov. And Sarantsev F.K., to condemn them to death with immediate execution of the sentence.

2. To approve the text of the message of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on this case in the press (attached).

 

Published on 19.XII.51, 

 

IN THE MILITARY COLLEGE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE USSR

 

The other day the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR considered the case of American saboteurs A.I. Osmanov and Sarantseva F.K.

 

As it turned out during the investigation and at the trial, in August of this year, Osmanov and Sarantsev were parachuted from an American plane at night on the USSR territory in the Moldavan Soviet Republic.

 

Soviet state security bodies detained the criminals. During a search, it found fake documents, weapons, poison, and other means for committing sabotage and terror and large sums of money. In the area of ​​detention of Osmanov and Sarantsev, opened parachutes were taken, on which they were dropped.

 

Osmanov and Sarantsev admitted that they were recruited by American intelligence in West Germany. They were in the camps of "displaced persons" for espionage, sabotage, and terrorist activities in the Soviet Union. Osmanov and Sarantsev testified that they underwent special training in topography, firing military weapons, parachute jumping, organizing sabotage, terror, and espionage under the guidance of American intelligence officers.

During the investigation and at the trial, it was established that Osmanov and Sarantsev, upon completion of preparations for subversive work, were transferred to Greece, and from there, on an American plane and accompanied by American officers, were taken to the place of dropping on Soviet territory.

 

Osmanov and Sarantsev testified in court that, after completing the criminal assignments given to them, they had to arrive in the city of Kars (Turkey) to meet with American intelligence officers.

 

At the trial, the defendants Osmanov and Sarantsev pleaded guilty to the charges brought against them.

 

The Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court acknowledged the charge brought against the defendants Osmanov and Sarantsev under Art. 58-1 "b" of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, fully proven. Considering the severity of their crime against the Soviet state and guided by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated January 12, 1950, "On the application of the death penalty to traitors to the Motherland, spies, demolition saboteurs," the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced them to capital punishment - shot.

The verdict was carried out.

Source: Лубянка. Сталин и МГБ СССР. Март 1946 — март 1953 : До- кументы высших органов партийной и государственной власти / Сост. В.Н. Хаустов, В.П. Наумов, Н.С. Плотникова.

(Lubyanka. Stalin and the USSR Ministry of State Security. March 1946 - March 1953)