RPT - Biden Unlikely To Agree To Exchange Russian, US Prisoners - Lawyer

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 09th June, 2021) US President Joe Biden will unlikely agree to release Russian citizens convicted in the United States, even in exchange to Americans imprisoned in Russia, partner at Marks & Sokolov LLC, former Pennsylvania State Senator Bruce Marks told Sputnik.

"Recently, there have been renewed discussion about the United States releasing Victor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko in return for Americans in prison in Russia," Marks said on Tuesday. "Dating back to the exchanges of Cold War spies, well documented in the Tom Hanks movie Bridge of Spies, this would not be difficult legally from the American point of view because they were convicted of Federal crimes."

US leader could commute their sentences and order them deported to Russia in exchange for similar treatment of Americans, such as Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, he added.

In the meantime, the former lawmaker expressed doubts that the US President will consider the opportunity of a prisoner exchange.

"While the means by which the US arrested Bout and Yaroshenko are certainly controversial, and serious issues of entrapment existed in both prosecutions, it seems unlikely that Biden will agree to their release at this early stage in his dialogue with Putin," he said.

Russian businessman Viktor Bout was arrested in Thailand at the US' request in 2008 as a result of an operation of US special services and handed over to the US.

Bout has already served half of a 25-year sentence in a US prison on charges of conspiracy to murder US citizens and financially supporting terrorism.

Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot, was arrested in Liberia in May 2010 on suspicion of drug trafficking. A year later, he was extradited to the US and sentenced to 20 years in prison on accusations of plotting a delivery of large quantities of drugs to the US territory. Yaroshenko has repeatedly protested the conditions of his imprisonment, noting that his health has greatly deteriorated.

Former US Marine Trevor Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020 for assaulting police officers who were called for during Reed's drunken row with two women in a Moscow street. Prosecutors said he assaulted the officers in the police car while they were taking him in for questioning, nearly causing a crash.

Whelan, who is also a citizen of Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018. A Moscow court sentenced him to a 16-year prison term for espionage last June. Whelan, however, has denied the charges and insisted that he came to Russia for a friend's wedding. Court papers have revealed that he had frequented Russia since 2007.