Russia convicts in absentia an American whom it accuses of being a mercenary in Ukraine
An American who spent three years behind bars in Russia before being freed in a prisoner swap has been convicted in absentia of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, according to Russian authorities. An American who spent three years behind bars in Russia before being freed in a prisoner swap was convicted in absentia of […]
An American who spent three years behind bars in Russia before being freed in a prisoner swap has been convicted in absentia of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, according to Russian authorities.
An American who spent three years behind bars in Russia before being freed in a prisoner swap was convicted in absentia of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, Russia's Investigative Committee said Wednesday.
Trevor Reed was sentenced by a Russian court to 14 and a half years in prison, the committee, which is the main Russian criminal investigation authority, said in a statement.
Reed was wounded in combat in eastern Ukraine in 2023 and received treatment in Germany. At first his whereabouts at the time of sentencing were unknown.
Reed, a former United States Marine, was arrested in Moscow in 2019 on charges of attacking a police officer when he was very drunk. Russian authorities claimed that he had grabbed the steering wheel of the police vehicle that was taking him to a drunken facility.
However, police did not present video evidence from the vehicle's camera and Reed's girlfriend, who was still in another car, said she had not seen the vehicle flip. Then-US ambassador John Sullivan said the evidence against Reed at trial was so crude that “even the judge laughed.”
Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was freed in April 2022 in an exchange for Russian drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko.
According to reports, he joined the Ukrainian Army as a foreign combatant in November 2022.
Reed's conviction was announced two days after a court in Moscow convicted American Stephen Hubbard, 72, of fighting in Ukraine as a mercenary and sentenced him to almost seven years in prison. Hubbard was captured by Russia about two months after full-scale fighting began in Ukraine in February 2022.