UN High Commissioner may ask Trump to pardon Russian pilot

 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein may ask US President Donald Trump to pardon Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving out a 20-year sentence in a US jail, Russian Human Rights Ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova told reporters, while on a working trip to the Kaluga Region on Thursday.

"The high commissioner for human rights may ask the president to pardon the man, like it is done in other cases. I have contacted the UN high commissioner and he said that the matter was worth consideration and they would respond to it," Moskalkova noted.

She elaborated that a month ago, she had received a letter from Yaroshenko, who thanked her for not forgetting him. Moskalkova added that she was planning to meet with the pilot’s wife and daughter, who had recently returned from the US after meeting with him, to find out about his health condition.

The Russian human rights ombudsperson earlier said at a meeting with students at Tsiolkovsky Kaluga State University that Yaroshenko’s health "is completely ruined." "During his arrest, his teeth were knocked out and he has been unable to get himself new teeth so far. As for what he eats, his weekly diet includes about 50 grams of meet, he speaks with his family on the phone for fifteen minutes a month and is allowed to walk outside for an hour a month," Moskalkova noted.
Yaroshenko case

Yaroshenko was arrested in Liberia in May 2010, and was later clandestinely transferred to the United States. In September 2011, he was found guilty of conspiring to smuggle a major cocaine shipment into the US, and sentenced to 20 years behind bars. However, Yaroshenko pleaded not guilty, saying that his arrest was a setup and the case was fabricated.

Until recently, Yaroshenko had been serving out his sentence at the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution, but in mid-June he was first transferred to a transit prison in Brooklyn, New York, and then to the Danbury prison, which holds more than 1,400 inmates.

Russian officials and the pilot’s family have persistently requested that Washington extradite him to Russia.