SPY CASE ENDS FOR AMERICAN HELD ON RUSSIA DRUG CHARGE

MOSCOW, Feb. 28 -- The Federal Security Service said today that it had no
further interest in an American student arrested on drug charges this
month, who it said on Tuesday was training to become an American military spy.

But other officials indicated that they might charge the American with more
serious violations of narcotics law that could lead to a lengthy prison
sentence.

The American, John Edward Tobin, a graduate student in Voronezh, a
southwestern city, under the State Department Fulbright scholar program,
was arrested on Feb. 1 outside a nightclub after the police had found what
they said was a half-ounce of marijuana in his clothes. The police said a
search of his apartment found an additional one and a half ounces of marijuana.

His case drew little attention until Tuesday, when Voronezh officials of
the Federal Security Service, the domestic arm of the former K.G.B., said
Mr. Tobin had learned Russian at an American military school and been
trained in interrogation at a military intelligence center in Fort
Huachuca, Ariz.

The officials said he was believed to be training in Russia for a future
espionage mission, a contention that the State Department flatly denied.

The United States Army said in a statement today that Mr. Tobin had
received intelligence training, but that he was a specialist in the Army
Reserve and was studying in Russia as a private citizen.

American officials had refused to name Mr. Tobin, whom Russian officials
had identified as Tobbin, because he has not waived his right to privacy
under American law. But news reports today said that Mr. Tobin, 24, a
native of Ridgefield, Conn., is an Army Reserve specialist in the 325th
Military Intelligence Battalion in nearby Waterbury.

Newspapers in Hartford reported that Mr. Tobin studied with the military in
1995 and 1996 and earned a bachelor's in international studies last year
from Middlebury College in Vermont, an institution that offers a renowned
Russian-language program.

Officials of the Russian security service stuck by their assessment that
Mr. Tobin was an agent in training, but said they had no more questions for
him because his work here had not damaged national security. They said Mr.
Tobin had told them that he was writing a thesis on changes in Russian
political attitudes since the fall of the Soviet Union.

He is charged with possessing drugs, which could bring a three-year jail
term. Russian officials said, however, that Mr. Tobin could face a more
serious charge of distributing drugs based on other witnesses' testimony. A
conviction for distributing drugs, selling them or giving them to others,
can mean 10-year sentence.