Moscow (CNN) -- A Russian colonel was convicted of treason for betraying a group of spies in the United States, including Anna Chapman, a court spokeswoman told CNN Monday.
Colonel Alexander Poteev was sentenced in absentia to 25 years in a penal colony and stripped of his military title, Moscow District Military Court spokeswoman Irina Zhirnova said.
He was accused of revealing information that led to the expulsion of 11 Russian spies from the United States last year.
This sentence will come into force in 10 days, and he has until then to file an appeal, Zhirnova said.
His whereabouts are not known.
Russia's president awarded the spies top state honors in October, Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said at the time.
The awards were given to employees of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), she said, "including the intelligence officers who were working in the United States and returned to Russia in July."
Shortly after news of the spy scandal broke President Dmitry Medvedev, trying to downplay repercussions, said any attempt to destroy warming relations with the U.S. would fail.
In August, however, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, himself a former intelligence agent in Germany during the Cold War, boasted that he met with the spies after their return to Moscow and sang "patriotic songs" with them. He also criticized U.S. authorities for "going out of control" in dealing with the affair.
Eleven intelligence personnel, living and working in the U.S. as "sleeper" agents, were arrested and later allowed to return to Moscow as part of a spy swap. A twelfth was arrested in Cyprus and escaped.
Perhaps the most famous member of the group, Anna Chapman, has been relentlessly covered by international media and portrayed as a glamorous spook.
She posed on the cover of a Russian men's magazine in lingerie and holding a gun in October, and she was elected to the public board of the pro-government The Young Guard of United Russia in December, according to Russian news agency reports.
Russian media have also reported she is a consultant to a Russian investment bank, that she is writing a book on "new Internet resources," and was spotted at the Baikonur space station working on space exploration projects.
CNN's Jill Dougherty contributed to this report.
