was also involved in efforts to recruit other Russian assets and was in contact with Alexander Litvinenko. In 1996, due to his diabetes, Skripal was sent back to Moscow, where he went on to work in the GRU headquarters and for a while was acting director of the GRU personnel department. Skripal held the rank of colonel when he retired, due to his inadequate health condition, in 1999. He continued to make trips to Spain, where he had a house near Málaga at his disposal, provided by his handlers. According to Russian prosecutors, he began working for the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in 1995 and passed on state secrets, such as the identities of Russian intelligence agents. After his retirement, he worked in the Household Department of the Russian foreign ministry, while continuing to work for MI6. He was alleged to have blown the cover of 300 Russian agents. From 2001, Skripal worked in the Ministry of Municipalities of the Government of Moscow Oblast. Arrest and conviction In December 2004, Skripal was arrested outside his house in Moscow's Krylatskoye District shortly after returning from Britain. In August 2006, he was convicted of spying for Britain. Prosecutors said he had been supplying MI6 with information since the 1990s and was paid $100,000 by MI6 for the information. Amid controversial circumstances, he was convicted under "Article 275" of the Russian Criminal Code (high treason in the form of espionage) by the Moscow Regional Military Court in a trial conducted behind closed doors. The prosecution, which was represented by Chief Military Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky, argued for a 15-year sentence – instead of the 20-year maximum under Article 275 – in recognition of mitigating circumstances such as his cooperation with investigators. Skripal was sentenced to 13 years in a high-security detention facility; he was also stripped of his military rank and decorations. The affair was not revealed to the public until after he was sentenced in August 2006. Skripal's lawyers appealed the sentence, which was upheld by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court on 30 November 2006. In July 2010, Skripal was pardoned by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Release and life in UK On 9 July 2010, Skripal and three other Russians, who had been imprisoned for spying for the US, were freed as part of a spy swap. The four men were exchanged for ten Russian agents arrested in the