Moscow hopes that Victor Bout, Konstantin Yaroshenko and other Russian nationals might be released as American jails free prisoners due to coronavirus fears, Russia's permanent mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th March, 2020) Moscow hopes that Victor Bout, Konstantin Yaroshenko and other Russian nationals might be released as American jails free prisoners due to coronavirus fears, Russia's permanent mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said on Tuesday.
On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that jails in California, New York, Ohio, Texas and in a dozen other states are releasing low-level offenders and vulnerable inmates early as coronavirus cases surge at home and worldwide.
"Authorities of some US States, fearing an outbreak of coronavirus in prisons, release inmates to go home. We hope, this will contribute to the release of V. Bout, K. Yaroshenko & other Russians wrongfully held by the American 'themis'," the mission wrote on Facebook.
Bout was arrested in a US sting operation in Bangkok in 2008 and extradited two years later to face charges of conspiring to kill Americans and of supplying Colombian rebels with weapons. In 2011, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He pleaded not guilty.
Yaroshenko was captured in Liberia in 2010 and sentenced to 20 years in prison the following year in the US on charges of conspiring to import drugs, which he denied.
