US citizen
has been sentenced to 13 years in a Russian prison for attempted drug smuggling, Moscow’s court service said.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Leake, a former paratrooper and musician, tried to sell drugs he had obtained from an accomplice between January and June 2023.
Leake was accused of packaging the drugs for sale before giving them to another defendant in the case, a Russian named Veronika Grabanchuk.
Interfax reported that both Leake and Grabanchuk made four attempts to sell over 40g of mephedrone.
“In addition, Leake stored more than 1.6g of mephedrone and 0.54g of pills containing the narcotic drug MDMA at his apartment on Zaporozhskaya Street without the intention of selling them. The drugs were found and seized during operational activities,” the report added.
In June, Russian state television showed Leake locked in a metal cage at his trial.
In a separate video shared online, he said he “didn’t know” why he was detained.
Appearing confused, he said he did not believe he had done what he was accused of, because he did not know what the charges were.
Leake is at least the third American detained in Russia in recent years amid heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow. He has lived in Russia for year with his rock band.
There are currently around a dozen Americans currently held in Russian detention.
Washington has urged its citizens to leave Russia immediately, citing the threat of arrest amid the highest tensions between the two countries since the Cold War, reports the BBC.
In Russia, only 0.25% of all cases referred to court in 2018 ended with not-guilty verdicts.
