Family Of Russia's Butina To Meet Her At Moscow Airport After Months In US Jail - Father

Family of Russia's Butina to Meet Her at Moscow Airport After Months in US Jail - Father

The family of Maria Butin, a Russian national imprisoned in the United States on a single charge of conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent, will meet her in one of the airports of the Russian capital Moscow, Maria's father, Valery Butin, told Sputnik on Saturday

BARNAUL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th October, 2019) The family of Maria Butin, a Russian national imprisoned in the United States on a single charge of conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent, will meet her in one of the airports of the Russian capital Moscow, Maria's father, Valery Butin, told Sputnik on Saturday.

Butina was arrested in mid-2018 and sentenced to 18 months in prison last April on a single charge of conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent in the US. She signed her plea deal after being held in solitary confinement and requested a sentence of time served. Earlier in September, her lawyer Robert Driscoll said that the woman would be released on October 25.

"Nothing is known yet, the date of the release remains unchanged - October 25. No other details are known, neither the flight number, nor the time. The process of release is traditional, she will be transferred to the immigration services' officials who, in turn, will deport her from the country within 24 hours. We do not know any details, the entire family will probably meet her in one of the Moscow airports, and [our] other daughter will arrive from St. Petersburg, everything will get clear in the coming days," Butin said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has called Butina's sentence a disgrace of the US judicial system and has accused the court of carrying out a political order. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Butina's indictment is unjustified because she was not tasked to perform any mission on behalf of the Russian government.