Russian gun activist Maria Butina, who has spent over a year behind bars in the US, has finally left prison and is now expected to arrive in Russia on Saturday.
Butina’s case has become a glaring example of anti-Russian hysteria; she was quickly labeled as a “spy” by American media and wrongfully accused of trading sex for political favors.
Following her arrest, she spent nine months in custody, mostly in solitary confinement – a treatment that was described as exceedingly harsh and even amounting to torture – before pleading guilty to acting as a foreign agent without registration. The gun activist was eventually sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Butina is being transferred from a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a migrant center in Miami where she will board a plane to Moscow and arrive in the Russian capital on Saturday morning. The repatriation of Butina is being overseen by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which did not provide any details on the matter, citing the need to protect “operational security.”
Moscow denied any involvement with Butina and condemned her treatment in US prisons. President Vladimir Putin called her trial and sentence “a travesty of justice.”
“We’re glad that finally, after very long delays, the American justice [system] made the decision that we sought,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters.
