NEW YORK, June 18. /TASS/. Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a 20-year prison term in the US for ostensible criminal intentions to transport a large consignment of cocaine from Liberia, has been relocated to a prison in Danbury, Connecticut, as follows from a report published by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.
It described the prison as a federal penitentiary with lower requirements for security that has more than 1,400 inmates, both men and women.
Yaroshenko served his sentence at Fort Dix prison in New Jersey before relocation. He then was taken to a jail in Brooklyn at the transition stage.
"We’ll demand an earliest possible telephone conversation with Yaroshenko and a meeting with him, as long as we can do something," Alexei Tarasov, the lawyer representing the pilot told TASS.
More specifically, he said he was going to find out the conditions in the penitentiary and "details about the relocation procedure".
A court in the US sentenced Yaroshenko to 20 years in jail on September 7, 2011. He fully denies any guilt on his part and says his arrest was a provocation and the entire criminal case, a product of forgery.
Yaroshenko was taken to the US from Liberia following his arrest there on May 28, 2010. Undercover agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] had reportedly tracked down his plans to transport a large consignment of cocaine.
According to Alexei Tarasov, the defense expected earlier Yaroshenko’s relocation to a different jail, which is located in Loretto, Pennsylvania. He was to be taken there several days later.
Tarasov also said earlier an appeal to DEA had been drawn up on Yaroshenko’s part. It contained a request to the authorities to transfer him to a jail at Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
"We hoped they would take account of Yaroshenko’s opinion," he said.
Official Russian representatives have asked the US authorities more than once to turn the imprisoned pilot over to Russia.