Former US Embassy employee arrested, held at same Moscow prison as WSJ reporter: Russian report

Russia’s Federal Safety Service arrested and charged Robert Shonov, recognized as a former worker of the U.S. Embassy in Russia, with conspiracy, Russian state-owned information company TASS reported Monday. 

At a press briefing Monday, U.S. State Division spokesperson Vedant Patel instructed members of the media that he had seen the report. 

“I don’t have something extra to supply right now,” Patel mentioned, in keeping with the New York Occasions. 

TASS quoted an unnamed regulation enforcement supply as having mentioned Shonov had been detained in Vladivostok, a significant Pacific port city in Russia close to the borders with China and North Korea. 

UK CONSIDERS ‘FIGHTER JET COALITION’ WITH UKRAINE AS ZELENSKYY MEETS WITH PRIME MINISTER 

After questioning, Shonov was placed under arrest and charged with committing a criminal offense “below Article 275.1 of the Prison Code (collaboration on a confidential foundation with a international state or worldwide or international group),” the supply reportedly mentioned. He was taken to Lefortovo Jail in Moscow for additional questioning. 

A professional-Kremlin protester outdoors the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on March 18, 2023. Russia state media reported a former embassy worker was arrested. (Yuri Kadobnov/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)

TASS reported that he might resist eight years in jail and no court docket date has been scheduled. 

The TASS report didn’t make clear Shonov’s citizenship, so it isn’t instantly recognized if he is American, Russian or of one other nationality. 

Lefortovo jail, the place American journalist Evan Gershkovich has been jailed on espionage expenses, dates from the czarist period and has been a terrifying image of repression since Soviet instances. The inconspicuous, pale yellow advanced in japanese Moscow was constructed as a army penitentiary in 1881 and was used for low-ranking convicts sentenced to comparatively brief phrases. It gained its notoriety after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, when it turned a prime detention facility for the Soviet secret police.

Robert Shonov, recognized as a former worker of the U.S. Embassy in Russia, was reportedly dropped at the Lefortovo jail in Moscow. (Vasily Maximov/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)

Beneath Soviet chief Josef Stalin’s Nice Terror of mass arrests within the Thirties, Lefortovo was one of many predominant pre-trial detention services for “enemies of the folks,” outfitted with torture chambers to extract confessions. Stalin’s sadistic secret police chief, Lavrentiy Beria, personally took half in some prisoner interrogations and executions in its basement.

FBI RESPONDS TO SCATHING DURHAM REPORT ON TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE, TOUTS ‘DOZENS OF CORRECTIVE ACTIONS’

Vasily Blyukher, one of many highest-ranking Crimson Military officers, was amongst those that died in 1938 after being tortured in Lefortovo.

Despite the fact that it was formally transferred to Justice Ministry jurisdiction in 2005, the Federal Safety Service, the highest KGB successor company that’s recognized below its acronym FSB, has maintained de facto management of the power, in keeping with The Related Press. 

A former worker of the U.S. Embassy in Russia is reportedly being held on the infamous Lefortovo jail in Moscow, in keeping with Russian state media. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)

Paul Whelan, a Michigan company safety government and a former Marine, was held in Lefortovo after his arrest in 2018 on espionage expenses that his household and the U.S. authorities have mentioned are baseless. After his conviction in 2020, Whelan was transferred to a different jail to serve his 16-year sentence.

Lefortovo’s trademark is holding its prisoners in “complete info isolation,” Yevgeny Smirnov, a outstanding lawyer who has defended espionage and treason suspects, instructed the AP. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. Information and World Report, was put in Lefortovo after his 1986 arrest on bogus espionage accusations. He was launched with out cost 20 days later in a swap for an worker of the Soviet Union’s U.N. mission who was arrested by the FBI on spying expenses. 

Gershkovich, a 31-year-old reporter for The Wall Road Journal, is the primary American reporter to be arrested on espionage expenses in Russia since Daniloff. The Journal denied the allegations and demanded Gershkovich’s release.

The Related Press contributed to this report.