MOSCOW (Reuters) – A legal appeal by former U.S Marine Trevor Reed, who is serving a jail term in Russia, has been postponed after he tested positive for COVID-19, his father said on Wednesday.
The American national was sentenced to nine years in jail last July after being convicted of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk in Mosow.
He denied the charge and said the case was “clearly political”. The United States whose ties with Moscow have been at post-Cold War lows for years described the trial as “theatre of the absurd” and lacking in serious evidence.
Reed’s legal appeal was due to take place on Wednesday, but his father said in an email to Reuters that his son had tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday and that his appeal had therefore been postponed.
“We are unsure of Trevor’s condition, treatment, or exact location,” his father Joey Reed said.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)