American school teacher Marc Fogel has been released from prison in Russia and is on the way home to the US, according to US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
Waltz said in a statement Mr Fogel’s release had been negotiated as part of an exchange with Russia, without providing further details.
He said Mr Fogel, 63, would be back in the US and reunited with his family by Tuesday night.
“We are beyond grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after more than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is finally coming home,” Mr Fogel’s family said in a statement to CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.
Mr Fogel was arrested at an airport for the illegal possession of cannabis in 2021.
He was charged with carrying a small amount of medical marijuana, which had been prescribed in the US, and given a 14-year prison sentence.
Mr Fogel, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was a teacher at the Anglo-American School of Moscow. He had previously worked as a diplomat at the US embassy there.
While in prison, he had reportedly been teaching English to fellow inmates.
Waltz said Mr Fogel’s release was a “show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine”.
Russia did not immediately comment on Mr Fogel’s release.
By BBC News
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