The family of a US teacher stuck in a hellhole Russian hard labor camp say they feel ‘stabbed in the back’ by Biden officials who failed to negotiate his release as part of a historic prisoner swap.
Marc Fogel, 61, was not among the 16 Western hostages, which included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and US marine Paul Whelan, who were released on Thursday.
In 2021, Fogel was jailed for 14 years in Russia after being caught with medical marijuana in his suitcase.
His sister Ann told CNN it was ‘gut-wrenching’ that her brother was not part of the exchange that took place this week.
‘We really hoped that they were going to get Mark on the plane,’ she said. ‘It’s been a rollercoaster, no sleep. I feel like we’ve been kind of collectively stabbed in the back.’
She also criticized the Biden administration for failing to designate her brother as ‘wrongfully detained,’ a crucial step in negotiations for release.
The label was given to the likes of Gershkovich and WNBA star Brittney Griner, who like Fogel, was also detained for marijuana possession.
‘After multiple documents signed by Mark by our family they will not give us any adequate answers as to why he has not been designated as Brittney was, their cases are nearly identical,’ Ann explained.
‘There was a classified report given in June and they didn’t even really have the facts of the case straight. Mark should have been prioritized through this entire process, it’s been one of the most frustrating times of my life to not be heard or taken seriously.
‘We don’t have the NBA and the Wall Street Journal backing us so Mark has been largely ignored.’
She also revealed Fogel has spent the last month in a prison hospital, where he is receiving ‘multitudes’ of injections without any explanation as to their purpose.
‘He needs the designation because he needs medical treatment,’ Ann tearfully added.
‘He’s fallen multiple times because there is lots of ice. Things are not going well for him.’
She shared that Fogel’s 95-year-old mother is now worried she will never see her son again.
Fogel had 17 grams of prescription marijuana hidden in a contact lens case to treat pain following a knee replacement and other injuries when he was detained in August 2021.
But the drug is totally forbidden in Russia.
He was apprehended as he traveled to work at the $34,000-a-year Anglo-American School of Moscow, in exactly the same part of Sheremetyevo International Airport where Griner was pulled aside for a similar crime five months later.
In June 2022, Fogel was handed a stunning 14-year sentence by a Russian judge, who accused him of trying to bring marijuana into the country to sell to his students.
Fogel was accused of using his diplomatic status as a former member of the US Embassy in Moscow to potentially run a ‘drug smuggling route’ into Russia’s capital.
Ann spoke out after it emerged that the Biden administration had negotiated the biggest prisoner swap with Russia since the end of the Cold War.
The deal involved the release of 24 prisoners across seven countries in total.
As well as Gershkovich and Whelan, Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who was sentenced to more than six years in a Russian prison in a rapid, secret trial late last month was freed.
The trio met with the president and vice president after returning to the US last night before being reunited with their families.
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