The administration of the US prison in Alexandria, Virginia where Russian citizen Maria Butina is being kept has not explained the causes for prolonging her detention in solitary confinement, Butina's father Valery Butin told reporters on Tuesday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th December, 2018) The administration of the US prison in Alexandria, Virginia where Russian citizen Maria Butina is being kept has not explained the causes for prolonging her detention in solitary confinement, Butina's father Valery Butin told reporters on Tuesday.Earlier in the day, Sergey Trepelkov, the minister-counselor of the Russian Embassy to the United States, told Sputnik that the period of Butina's detention in a single cell has been extended once again.
"They usually do not explain why [detention in solitary confinement] is prolonged. They just prolong it. They provide neither lawyers nor employees of the [Russian] embassy with any explanations," Butin said.
He added that the jail's administration would consider the issue of Butina's detention regime on Thursday.
US authorities arrested Butina in mid-July. The Russian national originally pleaded not guilty to charges of acting as a foreign agent and conspiracy to act as an agent of Russia in the United States. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said the charges against Butina were groundless and trumped-up and called her ongoing detention unacceptable.
Butina subsequently cooperated with the investigators, pleading guilty in front of a US Federal judge to one count of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent earlier this month. The next hearing in Butina case is set for February 13.
In late November, the Russian Embassy in the United States said that Butina had been held in an individual cell for 67 days, which was longer than the period recommended by the United Nations in the so-called Nelson Mandela Rules for the treatment of prisoners.
