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Health of Russian pilot jailed in US is failing, wife says

The pilot's spouse insists that US doctors do not provide him with medical assistance

Viktoria Yaroshenko Mikhail Pochuyev/TASS

Viktoria Yaroshenko

© Mikhail Pochuyev/TASS

ROSTOV-ON-DON, August 19. /TASS/. The health of Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year sentence in the US, is failing, his wife Viktoria told TASS on Monday.

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Jailed pilot Yaroshenko requests additional medical check-up at US facility, says wife

"He says he is not receiving any medical care, [his leg] is hurting, it is getting worse, so he has decided to use bee venom as a treatment," she said. "He says his leg is hurting so bad that he has trouble walking," Viktoria Yaroshenko added.

According to her, Konstantin asked her to send him an article on bee-sting therapy.

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.

The Russian was initially sent to the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution, but in mid-June 2018, he was first transferred to a transit prison in Brooklyn, New York, and then to the Danbury prison, which holds more than 1,400 inmates.

Russian officials and the pilot’s family have on numerous occasions requested that Washington extradite him to Russia.

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