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Marc Fogel had easily traveled to and since Russia several times before his last return to the country in August 2021. He had taught history for almost a decade, mainly to diplomats, at the Anglo-American school from Moscow.
But by entering Russia before what he had decided, his last year teaching at school, Mr. Fogel was arrested and accused of drug trafficking – less than an ounce of cannabis he used To treat chronic back pain. In June 2022, he was sentenced to 14 years in a high security prison; In Russia, lesser penalties have often been imposed on condemned murderers.
After lobbying by the US government, Mr. Fogel, now 63, was released Tuesday after three and a half years.
He and his wife, Jane, had been world adventurers near retirement, having lived in Colombia, Malaysia, Oman, Venezuela and Russia. But like other Americans imprisoned in Russia, like the basketball star Brittney Griner and the journalist Evan Gershkovich, he became a pawn in power struggles between Moscow and Washington surrounding the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Up to a year before his arrest, Mr. Fogel, like all teachers of the Anglo-American school, had diplomatic immunity. But as tensions increased with the United States, Russia has stripped teachers of this protection. In 2022, Russia forced the school to close and confiscate its property.
Eric Rubin, a former American diplomat in Moscow who knows Mr. Fogel and worked to have him released, said that he was “essentially a situation of hostage”. He said he suspected that the Russian authorities knew that Mr. Fogel would carry vape cannabis cartridges when he landed at Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow with his wife, Jane.
“It was definitely a configuration,” said Rubin, and the penalty was “scandalously incoherent” with the sanctions imposed on similar offenses of Russian citizens, who often get probation rather than for a prison sentence.
Mr. Fogel had a doctor’s prescription for medical marijuana and, according to A website maintained by his family“He planned to declare his medical marijuana to Russian customs.” The site says: “Marc has suffered from physical illnesses, in particular the severe back and the problems of knee, hip and shoulder associated” and even displays X -rays showing pins and screws in its lower vertebral column.
None of this was for the authorities in Russia, where the medical use of marijuana is not recognized – although the family’s website indicates that “Russia had previously let foreigners bring marijuana with a prescription from a doctor. “
Mr. Fogel was tried by the same courtyard as Ms. Griner, who was found guilty of a similar crime and sentenced to nine years in a criminal colony. She was exchanged in December 2022, after almost 10 months in detention, against Viktor Bout, a condemned Russian arms dealer.
After his conviction, Mr. Fogel was sent to a remote labor camp north of Moscow, a place that made the diplomats difficult to visit, where his family said they received lower quality medical care and that “his deterioration was dramatic ”. Last year, they talked about his “serious health problems”, their fear that his 95 -year -old mother would never see him again, and the urgency of “saving him from potentially dying in a Russian prison”.
The family got angry with the Biden administration for not having paid as much attention to Mr. Fogel’s fate as well as those of Mrs. Griner, Mr. Gershkovich, the journalist of the Wall Street Journal who was released in Last August in an exchange of prisoners, or Paul Whelan, an American who was detained in Russia from 2018 until his release with Mr. Gershkovich. Indeed, they said, his own government had abandoned him.
On website This calls for his release, the supporters of Mr. Fogel said that before being elected, President Trump had promised his mother that he was “determined to bring” Fogel to his home. At the end of December, the State Department said that the US government said Fogel was wrongly detained – a move that his family said was three years late.
“Now that we have all the strength of the American government behind us, we have to do everything in our power to bring Marc back to house as quickly and safely as possible,” the family said in a statement according to the announcement.
Speaking during his confirmation hearing of the Senate in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that it would be impossible to improve relations between Washington and Moscow unless Mr. Fogel is released.
“If they are not willing to do so,” said Rubio, “then I think that the chances of improving relations in Russia-United States are impossible.”
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