MOSCOW, April 02. /ITAR-TASS/. US Minister-Counsellor Howard Solomon was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, April 2, to hear a protest over the situation concerning Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who has been sentenced to a long prison term in the United States.

The Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, democracy and the rule of law Konstantin Dolgov, who presented the protest, stressed that “the conditions in the prison where our fellow citizen is held remain a matter of serious concern to us”.

“We have received Yaroshenko’s letter addressed to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, which indicates that the Russian citizen is not getting proper medical care in connection with the serious ailments he has acquired as a result of tortures during the arrest in Liberia and the treatment in American penitentiary institutions which does not correspond to international standards,” the protest said.

Yaroshenko recently had a severe bout of an infection and viral disease, during which he felt a sharp pain in the heart, which has been recurring over and over again since then. His requests for medical help were ignored by the prison administration.

In September 2011, a US court sentenced Yaroshenko to 20 years in prison for having been allegedly involved in a criminal ring organised for smuggling a large shipment of cocaine. He was detained by the US authorities in Liberia and then taken to the United States. Moscow believes that these charges are doubtful.