IPNEWS: A Russian pilot who returned to Moscow from the United States this week as part of a prisoner swap said on Thursday he had been tortured in custody in Liberia before his extradition to America.
Konstantin Yaroshenko also alleged he had been beaten at a military base in the United States, a claim rejected by the White House.
Yaroshenko was detained in 2010 in Liberia by US special forces as part of a major drug bust. US authorities then convicted him for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States and he was serving a 20-year sentence.
He was released in exchange for former US Marine Trevor Reed, who was convicted in Russia in 2019 of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow. Washington branded Reed’s trial a “theater of the absurd.”
Of his time in Liberia, Yaroshenko said: “They really worked on me. If you saw that torture room now — it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s like something from a horror movie.”
He did not say whether the alleged torture had been carried out by Liberians or Americans. The Liberian government is yet to comment on the matter since Thursday.
Flanked by his wife and daughter in the television studio of Russian media firm Izvestia, Yaroshenko said he was sat on a chair with his arms shackled and beaten for three days.
“Heels, kidneys, genitals, strangled — believe me, everything there was serious… Of course, to survive that was very hard,” he said.
Yaroshenko said he was then flown to a military base in the United States, asked to sign some documents, and beaten when he refused.
Responding to his comments, a White House official said Yaroshenko had received “full and fair due process in the US legal system… the United States Government adheres to the rule of law and treats detainees humanely.”
Yaroshenko said the US prison where he was held was overcrowded and unsanitary, adding that he intended to prove his innocence and his mistreatment. “I want to hold the US to account,” he said.
US officials say the prisoner swap does not represent any change in Washington’s stance on the war in Ukraine. It has been providing diplomatic and military support to Ukraine since Russian forces invaded the country on Feb. 24.
On September 7, 2011, a federal court in New York sentenced a Russian pilot to 20 years in prison for drug smuggling, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports. Konstantin Yaroshenko was found guilty of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States. He pleaded not guilty.
Yaroshenko was arrested in the Liberian capital of Monrovia on May 2010 and extradited to the United States.
Federal Judge Jedd Raikoff chose the middle of the range of penalties for such crimes. The prosecutor’s office demanded a thirty-year prison term for Yaroshenko, the defense asked for ten years in prison. According to the judge, such a harsh sentence is inevitable in punishment for a crime, as he put it, “colossal proportions.” This is the largest drug smuggling case in his practice.
The sentencing was the last act of the trial. In April, a jury found Yaroshenko guilty. On September 7, during the almost three-hour meeting preceding the announcement of the verdict, the defense made an unusual bet on the Russian factor, trying to achieve leniency for the client. Lawyer Steve Ziss drew the judge’s attention to numerous letters from Russian officials, State Duma deputies, the Russian Consul General in New York, and colleagues of Konstantin Yaroshenko in support of the accused, describing his human and professional merits. However, the attempt, so to speak, of public pressure on the judge did not work.
He, thanking those who decided to stand up for Yaroshenko, rejected the main thesis of these messages – the innocence of the convict. First, according to the judge, the authors of the letters do not know all the details of the case. Secondly, and more importantly, the jury concluded that Yaroshenko was guilty while acquitting two of his accomplices. It is interesting that at times there was a feeling that the judge was trying to explain to the Russian audience the features of American justice that were incomprehensible to her. “Each country has its own idea of what constitutes a serious crime,” the judge said.
Yaroshenko’s last word was long and confused. He said that his statements were misinterpreted. That he always respects the laws of the countries he visits, and he is ready to personally tell the judge about what happened to him, and only after that Yaroshenko ask the judge to show mercy to him. And show mercy towards his family, which is left without a breadwinner and without a livelihood.
After the trial, Yaroshenko’s mother commented on his outcome as follows:
– These are special agents who have neither honor nor conscience, they deceived the prosecutor’s office, the judge, and the jury, and they deceived the people of America.
When asked by Radio Liberty about her attitude to the judge’s statements that her son’s guilt was fully proven, Lyubov Yaroshenko answered: “I believe the judge, but he will also be deceived.”
Yaroshenko’s American lawyer, Steve Zissa, views the outcome of the trial in a different light. Here is how he assesses the actions of the judge:
The judge was objective, he considered all the possible facts and delivered a sentence significantly lower than recommended by the instructions. His decision was not influenced by extraneous irrelevant factors. We will appeal to the highest court, and the day will come when Konstantin again stands trial, and we will prove his innocence.
– And what do you see as grounds for an appeal?
– Some decisions of the judge during the trial, incorrect decisions of Yaroshenko’s former lawyers, inadmissible evidence, and poor translation of many transcripts of his wiretapping.
Speaking to Russian journalists, Konstantin Yaroshenko’s lawyer said that Russians should be outraged that a Russian citizen was arrested in Liberia and transferred to the United States. Louise Shelley, a well-known American terrorism expert at George Mason University, does not seem to think so. In her opinion, Moscow’s claims to American law enforcement agencies for the capture and prosecution of Bout and Yaroshenko are groundless:
“These are very different things. Yaroshenko was found guilty of being involved in drug smuggling into the United States. His case is quite ordinary in terms of combating transnational organized crime. Drug smuggling into the United States has always been viewed by the United States in an international context. According to the RICO legislative statute, American law enforcement agencies counter organized crime by pursuing the entire criminal network. Bringing Yaroshenko to justice by the American security forces is an ordinary case against the backdrop of these efforts.
It’s just that Russians collaborating with African crime is rare, but American intelligence agencies are constantly hunting for participants in the international drug-smuggling scheme into the United States. More ambiguous and confusing is the case of Viktor Bout, who, according to the prosecution, was involved in a conspiracy to sell weapons to Colombian drug terrorists. For example, it is established that Bout was at one time a subcontractor of an American company associated with the fighting in Iraq. Luring him to Thailand and then extraditing him to the US is a rare move in the fight against transnational crime. But the Yaroshenko case more obviously falls within the scope of American jurisdiction.
– In Russia, American law enforcement agencies are often accused of allegedly carrying out some political order.
I do not consider these cases politically motivated. I personally do not know anything that would indicate their political background. Some experts, on the contrary, wonder whether the interests of influential Russian individuals are behind both defendants. With regard to Yaroshenko, this is not obvious to me. This is more likely to be the case with Bout. Nor do I tend to view the Bout and Yaroshenko cases as if the US is teaching Russia a lesson.
Rather, the lesson is that the United States demonstrates the ability and willingness to fight transnational crime that harms American interests, no matter what, anywhere. It is very important to understand that the cases of Bout and Yaroshenko were opened not because their defendants are Russian citizens, but because they lead to many representatives of the international underworld. Perhaps this is a novelty for Russia, but not for those who have been implementing a strategy to combat transnational crime for several years now.
