Former US Marine Trevor Reed has gone on a hunger strike in a Russian prison after his prison guards placed him in solitary confinement and denied him medical treatment amid fears he had tuberculosis, his parents said.
Reed, 30, of Texas, is serving a nine-year sentence in a penal colony 217 miles east of Mordovia after being convicted in a Russian court of killing two police officers while intoxicated during a 2019 visit to Moscow in a lawsuit the US called it a “theater of the absurd”.
The hunger strike comes at a time when Reed’s health is believed to be in jeopardy because he is being held in a cell with a prisoner suffering from tuberculosis. Despite his deteriorating health, prison authorities refused to test him for the disease.
Trevor Reed stands in a defendant’s cage during a court hearing in Moscow March 11, 2020. He has been in Gulag IK-12 in Mordovia for over two years. He was arrested on the night of August 16, 2019 after a night of drinking and partying. Russian officials say he grabbed an arresting officer’s arm as he was driving Trevor to the police station, causing the car to swerve and “putting the lives of two officers at risk”.
Trevor Reed stood in a defendant’s cage during a court hearing in Moscow on July 30, 2020. His parents, Joey and Paula Reed, reported in early March that their son had shed blood
The parents protested in Lafayette Square near the White House on March 30, 2022 after failing to win an audience with Joe Biden to discuss their son’s release from a Russian gulag
The Reed family provided this undated photo of Trevor Reed with his mother, Paula, while he was still serving in the US Marines. He traveled to Russia in the summer of 2019 to visit his Russian girlfriend and learn Russian
His parents, Joey and Paula Reed, reported in early March that their son had shed blood. He was transferred to a prison hospital for 10 days, but was then returned to his cell for “meaningful medical care that goes beyond a wrongly done X-ray,” they said.
“Trevor’s Mordovian lawyer was able to see him (on Tuesday) and confirmed that Trevor was on a hunger strike … to protest that he was injured and being sent back to solitary confinement with tuberculosis,” the parents said in a statement.
“Shortly after his return, Trevor asked the IK-12 Gulag authorities to return to the hospital. Instead, the authorities returned him to solitary confinement,” they said.
Reed’s family revealed that Reed had previously spent some time in solitary confinement for refusing to do forced labor.
Trevor had spent the summer of 2019 in Russia, visiting his girlfriend and learning Russian. But just days before his return to the US, a night out in Moscow turned everything into chaos.
According to the Russian version of events, Reed was arrested on the night of August 16 after getting intoxicated and allegedly grabbing an officer’s arm as he was being taken to a station to be booked, causing the vehicle to swerve and ” endangered”. the life of the officers.
At the time, the US ambassador dismissed the claim as “absurd” and noted that the video evidence showed no discrepancy.
He is currently living in a cell in the penal colony in extremely poor conditions, according to the family, who say his cell does not even contain a toilet and that he has not received any items brought to him by US Ambassador John Sullivan.
Joey and Paula Reed pose with a portrait of their son, Navy veteran and Russian prisoner Trevor Reed, at their home in Fort Worth, Texas on February 15, 2022
Trevor Reed posed for a photo at Moscow Zoo in the summer of 2019 in happier times ahead of his arrest and imprisonment
Joey and Paula Reed have protested outside the White House to raise awareness of their son’s plight, which they see as “political leverage” from the Kremlin in future negotiations with the US.
Aware of Trevor Reed’s situation, President Biden has already pledged to the former Marine’s parents “to do whatever it takes to bring their son home, to remain in close contact with them through his national security team, and to schedule a meeting.” to be found personally,” according to a White House official.
So far, however, the President has not found time to meet with Trevor Reed’s parents.
This is the second hunger strike Reed has launched, following that of last year, motivated by his unjust imprisonment and alleged human rights abuses he suffered at the hands of the Russian penal system in his gulag.
He canceled it almost a week later after losing weight. The Russian prison authorities denied that he had refused food or that his rights were being violated.