The pilot Yaroshenko, convicted in the United States, asked the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation to extradite him to his homeland

Russia began official negotiations on extradition to the homeland of the Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, sentenced to 20 years in the United States for intentions about drug smuggling, Izvestia reports.

“Yaroshenko through diplomats handed us an appeal in which he told us that he was afraid for his life in an American prison, and asked him to extradite to Russia on the basis of the Convention on the transfer of convicted persons,” a source in the Russian Ministry of Justice told the publication, as Interfax reports.

The newspaper notes that Russian lawyers requested the US authorities the case file in the Russian pilot to launch a standard extradition procedure.

However, the United States does not provide Russian materials, explaining this to internal rules, because Yaroshenko’s sentence has not yet entered into legal force, has not passed all the courts, the publication emphasizes.

“The difficulty lies in the fact that Yaroshenko himself still has not decided whether he would appeal or not. The appeal process in the United States can stretch for years,” a source in the Foreign Ministry explained to Izvestia.

He also added that the Americans usually give good to extradition only after the foreigner is running out of their term.

Meanwhile, the newspaper notes that, under the Convention on the transfer of convicts from 1983, only one person was issued to Russia from the United States-the former UN diplomat Vladimir Kuznetsov, convicted by the federal court in New York for the removal of money.

“Over the past ten years, 20 people have already applied with a similar request to the Ministry of Justice of Russia, but they all have been refused,” the publication emphasizes.

In turn, the wife of Russian pilot Victoria Yaroshenko, in an interview with the publication, expressed concern about her husband’s health. “In recent days, he suddenly stopped calling and sending messages by e -mail. I am afraid if something happened to him. Recently, there was quarantine in the prison because of the smallpox epidemic. The whole camp was not released from the barracks for walks,” she said.

Victoria Yaroshenko also noticed that her husband’s health was undermined, and he was not given medical assistance there. In addition, recently she had the impression that the Russian authorities threw all her strength to the liberation of businessman Viktor Buta from prison, and they forgot about her husband, she said to Izvestia.

Earlier it was reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry found a legal way to take out a prisoner in the United States for 25 years Buta to Russia.