American citizen\u00a0Travis\u00a0Leake has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony in Russia, state media RIA Novosti reported Thursday, after he was detained on drug charges last year. <\/p>\n
A Moscow court had accused the \u201cformer paratrooper and musician\u201d of engaging in a narcotics business, according to RIA. Leake\u00a0pleaded not guilty to the charges, Russian state media TASS said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand why I\u2019m here. I don\u2019t admit guilt, I don\u2019t believe I could have done what I\u2019m accused of because I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m accused of,\u201d Leake reportedly said in his statement to police when he was arrested in June 2023, per tabloid outlet Ren TV. <\/p>\n
His sentencing comes as diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow are at a historic low, with Russia\u2019s brutal invasion of Ukraine raging on. Leake is one of at least a dozen US citizens and dual nationals currently being detained in Russia, including Evan Gershkovich, the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in\u00a0the country\u00a0since the Cold War. <\/p>\n
From January to June 2023, Leake allegedly\u00a0purchased narcotic drugs from an accomplice in another criminal case, Russian state media reported, citing Moscow\u2019s prosecutor\u2019s office. <\/p>\n
Leake\u00a0packaged the narcotics for sale, prosecutors said, after which he transferred the drugs to an accomplice to hide. He and the accomplice made four attempts to sell over 40 grams of mephedrone\u00a0(also known as \u201cmeow-meow\u201d), according to the court. <\/p>\n
According to investigators,\u00a0Leake\u00a0also kept more than 1.6 grams of the narcotic substance at his home, as well as tablets containing MDMA, all of which were confiscated during operational activities. <\/p>\n
A second person involved in the case was also found guilty and sentenced to time in a penal colony, Russian state media reported Thursday. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
American citizen\u00a0Travis\u00a0Leake has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony in Russia, state media RIA Novosti reported Thursday, after he was detained on drug charges last year. A Moscow court had accused the \u201cformer paratrooper and musician\u201d of engaging in a narcotics business, according to RIA. Leake\u00a0pleaded not guilty to the charges, Russian <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}