WASHINGTON (TNS) — Sen. Bob Casey and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are urging the U.S. State Department to escalate negotiations to free a Pittsburgh-area native held in Russia.
Marc Fogel, an Oakmont resident and Butler native, was sentenced in June to 14 years in a high security penal colony after having been detained by Russian officials last year. The widely traveled educator was arrested at the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow for possession of just under 20 grams of medical marijuana.
”Mr. Fogel’s recent 14-year sentence to a maximum-security penal colony for possession of less than an ounce of medical marijuana can only be understood as a political ploy by Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime,” the senators wrote in a letter to the State Department Tuesday.
They want the Biden administration to designate Fogel a political prisoner, thereby activating official hostage negotiations similar to the intervention underway for the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Fogel, a 61-year-old with severe medical conditions, has already been detained for a year. “The United States cannot stand by as Fogel wastes away in a Russian hard labor camp,” the senators wrote.
The group of nine lawmakers wants to see Fogel’s case reclassified by the State Department as a “wrongfully detained” under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.
The law, named for a retired FBI agent who is presumed to have died in Iranian custody after his disappearance in 2007, establishes several criteria for those detained abroad to be considered “wrongfully detained.”
Casey, D-Pa., along with Pennsylvania’s Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, and others, say that Fogel meets six criteria outlined in the law, including his citizenship, age, health and length of sentence.
Other lawmakers who signed the letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken include Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Steve Daines, R-Mont.; John Hickenlooper, D-Colo.; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Tim Kaine, D-Va.
”Mr. Fogel’s medical conditions will very likely worsen in such circumstances,” the lawmakers wrote, highlighting the career international educator’s chronic pain and permanent limp after several surgeries, and arguing that his sentence is “grossly disproportionate” to similar drug cases tried in Russia.
A State Department spokesperson said that in general officials “do not comment on congressional correspondence.”
”We take seriously our commitment to assist U.S. citizens abroad and are monitoring the situation,” the spokesperson said. “We continue to urge the Russian government to allow consistent, timely consular access to all U.S. citizen detainees in Russia, in line with its legal obligations and allow us to provide consular services for U.S. citizens detained in Russia.
”We also continue to press for fair and transparent treatment for all U.S. citizen detainees in Russia,” the statement continued. “The Department reviews cases of U.S.nationals detained abroad to determine whether they are wrongful detentions. We review the totality of the circumstances and assess the facts of the case against numerous criteria. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”
Department officials are in talks with Russia over a prisoner swap that would secure the release of Griner and Whelan.
Earlier this month, Griner, a 31-year-old two-time Olympic champion and eight-time WNBA all-star, was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to nine years in prison. She was arrested in February for allegedly having vape cartridges containing cannabis oil upon landing in Moscow to play basketball in the city of Yekaterinburg.
Whelan, convicted in 2020 of espionage, has been detained in Russia since 2018 and is serving a 16-year prison sentence.
The White House referred all questions to the State Department.
The senators’ correspondence comes just over two weeks after members of Pennsylvania’s U.S. House delegation, and Toomey, co-signed a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken regarding Fogel’s case.
Fogel spent 35 years teaching abroad in Malaysia, Mexico, Colombia, Oman, Venezuela and Russia. A year ago this month, Fogel flew back to Russia to teach for one more year at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, which educates the children of American and other international diplomats, before his planned retirement.
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