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Trevor Reed's family laments "gross violations of his basic human rights"
Photo: DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP
Former US soldier Trevor Reed, sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia, has started a hunger strike.
Reed started the strike last Thursday to protest against "repeated" violations of his fundamental rights, his lawyer Sergei Nikitenkov said on Tuesday.
According to the Reuters news agency, the prison's regional law enforcement agency contradicts this statement.
Reed was not on a hunger strike.
Nikitenkov said the prison authorities had withheld Reed's letters and forbade him to "write in his own language."
He was also repeatedly transferred to solitary confinement.
Reed's family said via Twitter that he was fighting against "gross violations of his basic human rights."
The American is therefore being held "in a small room with a hole in the floor as a toilet."
Reed can't remember the night of the crime
In 2019, Reed allegedly attacked two policemen who had been called to a party in Moscow while drunk.
Last summer he was sentenced to nine years in prison.
The 29-year-old had pleaded not guilty and said he could not remember anything.
Reed's family complained that the Russian authorities did not allow the US embassy in Moscow to monitor Reed's health.
Washington must now do everything to "bring him home."
The case even occupied US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the middle of the year.
During a joint conversation in Geneva, Biden had urged the release of Reed and the ex-marine, Paul Whelan, who had also been imprisoned.
According to the US, both are illegally detained.
In return, the US has been holding two Russians prisoner for decades, and Moscow is pushing for their release.
They are the arms dealer Viktor But and the pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.
Before Biden and Putin's summit, there was speculation about an exchange of prisoners.
svs / AFP / Reuters