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Maria Butina joins Expert Council to protect Russians’ rights abroad

The Russian national was apprehended on the charges of conspiracy to act as a foreign agent in the United States

Maria Butina Ksenia Shubina/TASS

Maria Butina

© Ksenia Shubina/TASS

MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Maria Butina, who had been charged with conspiracy to act as a foreign agent in the United States and was released from a US jail in October, has become a member of the Expert Council under the Russian Human Rights Ombudsperson to work on protecting the rights of Russian nationals abroad, Ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova told a council session on Tuesday.

"Let me inform you about a new member to the Expert Council. Let me introduce public activist and political writer Maria Butina. A very important direction that we are currently pursuing is the protection of our fellow countrymen, who find themselves in difficult circumstances in their life abroad. We look forward to seeing Maria Butina in charge of this course," Moskalkova said.

Earlier, the ombudsperson said that Butina would work as an expert in a working group under the ombudsperson.

Butina case

Butina was arrested in Washington on July 15, 2018, ahead of the Helsinki summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump. She was charged with conspiracy to act as a foreign agent in the United States. American intelligence services argued that the Russian citizen had carried out this activity without being registered as an agent of a foreign state with the US Department of Justice.

On December 13, 2018, Butina pleaded guilty of conspiracy to violate the US law governing foreign agents operating in the country and signed a plea bargain. On April 26, 2019, she was sentenced to 18 months behind bars. Moscow stated that the charges had been trumped-up, and demanded her release.

Butina's sentence ended on October 25. She was released from prison and deported to Russia.

The Russian initially went to the United States for a college course and obtained a master’s degree in international relations from American University in Washington.

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