Russian pilot Yaroshenko was exchanged for an American student who is negative in Russia
The BBC News Russian Service app is available for iOS and android. You can also subscribe to our channel at Telegram.
Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was set up in the United States for 20 years of security, was exchanged for an American, Trade Reed, who received a summer colony in Russia for a fight with policemen.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the exchange took place on April 27 “based on the results of the discussion of the negotiation process.”
Yaroshenko’s lawyer, Aleksey Tarasov, told Interfax that the exchange is taking place “to other countries”, and that the Russian is currently heading home. Yaroshenko’s wife, Victoria, specified that her husband’s exchange took place in Turkey, and now he is in Sochi.
TV channel “Russia 24” reported that the American Trever Reed, who was exchanged for Yaroshenko, was taken to Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and boarded the plane.
The lawyer for the American, Sergei Nikitenkov, told Interfax that Reed did not initiate the procedures related to the pardon, he did not admit guilt in the criminal case.
“The very fact of the exchange is not connected with any outcome of a pardon. Position [Рида] pardon was not considered at all, this legal procedure was not initiated,” Nikitenkov said.
“He agreed with this fact, approved it, but at the same time he pleaded not guilty,” the lawyer said.
What did Yaroshenko sit for?
Konstantin Yaroshenko Worked under one-time contracts in African countries, where passenger and cargo air transportation was previously located. He was abused in Liberia at the end of May 2010 and extradited to the US two days later.
According to the following investigations, he smuggled several tons of cocaine from Latin America to Liberia and then to Ghana, from where some of the drugs are sent by diplomatic mail to the United States.
In 2011, a federal court in New York found the Russian guilty of a drug smuggling offense and sent him to prison for 20 years.
Convict serving time at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Yaroshenko’s lawyers have been seeking his transfer to Russia for a long time. In 2014, he repeatedly appealed to voters for help, directed to the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I beg you to highlight several points of view and personally to US President Barack Obama with the goal of my speedy transfer to my homeland,” the first in the letter.
What did Trevor Reed sit for?
Former Marine, later a student, 28-year-old US citizen Trevor Reid was detained in Moscow on August 16, 2019.
According to the materials of the investigation, the police received a message that a man was arguing with two women near a house in the north of Moscow. Arriving law enforcement officers detained the man, put him in an official car and took him to the police station.
On the way to the department, the detainee, identified as intoxicated, attacked the driver, tearing his uniform, and also hit his partner, creating an emergency on the road, investigators said. The fact that the detained man is a native of Texas named Trevor Reid, according to human rights, only in the police department.
In 2020, the Golovinsky Court of Moscow found the American guilty of committing offenses dangerous to life and health and sentenced him to a nine-year penal colony.
Reed himself stated in court that he did not admit his guilt. According to him, he does not remember what happened, as he was drunk.
US Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan called the sentence against Trevor Reed “a theater of the absurd.”