2024-01-09 12:33:55
American imprisoned in Moscow in drug case
Robert Romanov Woodland, an American national arrested at the beginning of January and prosecuted in a drug case, has been placed in pre-trial detention, Russian justice announced. “In a decision taken on January 6, the Ostankinsky court of Moscow chose (…) to detain Robert Romanov Woodland for two months, until March 5, 2024”writes the press service of the Moscow courts on Telegram. He is notably accused of“acquiring, holding, manufacturing and transporting” drugs ” in large quantities “a crime punishable by twenty years in prison.
A Facebook account in the name of Robert Woodland indicates that he is an English teacher in Russia and that he lives on the outskirts of Moscow. Robert Woodland (birth name Roman Romanov) was adopted by a couple of American scientists, David and Marcia Woodland in 1993, writes the Russian site Info 24.
In recent years, several American citizens have been arrested and sentenced to heavy sentences in Russia, with Washington often accusing Moscow of doing this to exchange them for Russians detained in the United States, in the midst of confrontation over the conflict in Ukraine.
Since 2018, a former marine, Paul Whelan, has been imprisoned in Russia and was sentenced to sixteen years in prison in 2020 for espionage. At the end of March 2023, security services also arrested Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist from Wall Street Journal, also accused of espionage. In October, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, working for the media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was also arrested. She is being prosecuted in particular for the distribution of ” fake news “ on the Russian army. In December 2022, American basketball player Brittney Griner, convicted in Russia on charges of cannabis trafficking, was released against Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer imprisoned in the United States.
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