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Jailed Russian pilot’s wife arrives at US prison for first meeting with him

Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko is serving a 20-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut

© Artyom Geodakyan/TASS

DANBURY /Connecticut/, August 24. /TASS/. The wife of Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko who is serving a 20-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, arrived on Friday for the first meeting with him since 2011, a TASS correspondent reported from the scene.

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Viktoria Yaroshenko came to meet with her husband together with her daughter Yekaterina who last saw her father in 2011. The Russian pilot’s wife and daughter arrived at the prison in a car provided by the Russian Consulate General in New York. Yaroshenko’s meeting with his family is expected to last several hours.

On Monday, Viktoria Yaroshenko told TASS after arriving in New York that her length of stay in the US could be enough for 12 meetings with her husband. According to Alexei Topolsky, Vice-Consul of the Russian Consulate General in New York, a request for 12 meetings between the jailed Russian pilot, his wife and daughter has been sent to the US Federal Bureau of Prisons.

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 current Danbury prison, which holds more than 1,400 inmates.

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

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