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Trevor Reed, the former Marine who was wrongfully detained in Russia for nearly three years, filed a petition against Moscow with the United Nations.
The petition, which Reed family spokesman Jonathan Franks announced on Monday, looks to ask the Working Group to issue an opinion declaring Reed’s detainment unlawful. It also requests compensation for Reed for the violation of his rights. The Working Group is a panel of five experts from around the world that investigates cases in which individuals may have been deprived of their rights in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
TREVOR REED, WHO WAS DETAINED IN RUSSIA, IS PUSHING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO BRING OTHERS HOME
Reed, in an interview on CNN Tuesday morning, said the petition is designed “to hold Russia accountable for wrongful imprisonment, mistreatment, and violations of human rights.”
He was arrested in summer 2019 and was ultimately charged following an alleged altercation with Russian law enforcement officers that he denies. The U.S. had classified him as “wrongfully detained,” and with his health failing, President Joe Biden agreed to a prisoner swap to get him home this spring.
“The 13,000-word petition, which draws on legal documents and first-hand witness accounts, details the many injustices and abuses that Trevor suffered,” Franks said. “It explains how Russia violated Trevor’s basic rights by subjecting him to phony judicial proceedings that ignored exculpatory evidence, denied him bail on spurious grounds, egregiously infringed his right to counsel and access to U.S. diplomatic assistance, and subjected him to beatings and abuse in a gulag — all substantial violations of international and Russian law.”
He declined to provide the Washington Examiner with a copy of the petition when asked because they “don’t want to get ahead of the Working Group’s review.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Russian authorities convicted him in a sham trial of concocted crimes in which the government’s witnesses provided such fabricated and contradictory stories that they prompted laughter from courtroom observers,” Franks explained. “The key exculpatory evidence — police surveillance tapes — were erased without explanation. The Russian government then placed Trevor in a Soviet-era gulag, subjecting him to horrific living conditions, solitary confinement, malnutrition, and physical abuse, such that he began coughing up blood on a near daily basis. This was all in an effort to pressure the United States to free duly tried and properly convicted Russian nationals.”
