The legal defense of the Russian national Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a prison sentence in the United States, hopes that he will be included in a possible prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington, Yaroshenko's lawyer Alexey Tarasov told Sputnik
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th June, 2021) The legal defense of the Russian national Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a prison sentence in the United States, hopes that he will be included in a possible prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington, Yaroshenko's lawyer Alexey Tarasov told Sputnik.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the summit with his US counterpart Joe Biden that they raised prisoners exchange as an issue on which compromises could be found between Russia and the United States.
"I do believe that, if an exchange were to happen, that Konstantin Yaroshenko would be one of the people that would be exchanged," Tarasov said.
The lawyer welcomed the fact that both leaders raised the subject of prisoner exchanges. "I believe it is the right moment to raise this issue," he added.
The specifics of possible swap are yet to be worked out, Tarasov noted. In the meantime, he pointed out that Biden mentioned the timeframe of six months in his remarks following the talks in Geneva.
"So within the next six months, we will know if it would be possible to have the prisoners released," the lawyer said.
Tarasov did not rule out that another client, Yuri Martyshev, who is serving his 78-month sentence on computer hacking charges, as well as Viktor Bout, whose interests he represented in the past, would also be included in the swap.
"The fact that no particular Names were mentioned does not exclude the possibility of other people being exchanged," Tarasov said.
Yaroshenko was arrested in Liberia in 2010 on suspicion of drug trafficking and later extradited to the United States. In 2011, a US court sentenced Yaroshenko to 20 years in prison for allegedly taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle a large amount of drugs into the country. Yaroshenko pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
