A landmark prisoner exchange on Thursday brought home from Russia journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, among others, but the family of imprisoned American teacher Marc Fogel was not celebrating.
Once again, they learned, he had not been included.
“Today, Marc was left behind again,” Fogel’s wife and sons said in a statement urging the Biden administration to prioritize his release. “Marc has been unjustly detained for far too long and must be prioritized in any swap negotiations with Russia, regardless of his level of notoriety or celebrity.”
Fogel, 63, was detained by Russian officials in August 2021 and charged with smuggling into the country a small amount of medical marijuana, which was prescribed in the United States for back pain but is banned in Russia. A Pittsburgh-area native, he was a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow and spent 27 years teaching overseas in places such as Oman, Venezuela and Malaysia.
He is serving a 14-year sentence, during which he has been teaching English to prisoners.
He is among several Americans who remain in Russia, a list that includes Gordon Black, a U.S. soldier convicted of threatening his Russian girlfriend; Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen and aesthetician who was accused of donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity; and Michael Travis Leake, an American expatriate and musician who was convicted on drug charges.
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