American Marc Fogel greeted by Trump after being released from prison by Russia
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Mr Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since August 2021, on an airplane flying him back to the US.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, freed by Russia after 3½ years in prison, was given a flag-waving welcome from US President Donald Trump at a snowy White House on Feb 11 after a flight home from Moscow.
“I feel like the luckiest man on earth right now,” said Mr Fogel, an American flag draped around his shoulders. “I’m a middle-class school teacher who’s now in a dream world.”
Mr Trump, standing alongside Mr Fogel in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, said: “To me, he looks damned good.”
Mr Trump said Mr Fogel’s release “could be a big important part” of ending the Ukraine war. He and Mr Fogel both thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his release.
“We just wanted to get him back home,” Mr Trump said, adding that he would take Mr Fogel on a tour of the Lincoln Bedroom upstairs in the White House.
Mr Trump said another person would be released on Feb 12, without identifying who it would be. He called the terms of Mr Fogel’s release “very fair”.
Mr Fogel was released into the custody of Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy, Mr Steve Witkoff, who made an unannounced stop in Moscow on Feb 11 to pick him up.
On a plane home, Mr Fogel, who is from Pennsylvania, was shown with a raised glass, a cheese plate and his US passport in a photo posted on social media by Mr Trump’s special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler.
Asked what the United States gave up in exchange for Mr Fogel, Mr Trump told reporters earlier: “Not much”, and called the release a show of good faith from the Russians.
“We were treated very nicely by Russia. Actually, I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that (Ukraine) war and millions of people can stop being killed,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in prison for drug smuggling after he was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in August 2021 with 17g of marijuana in his luggage.
The marijuana had been medically prescribed in Pennsylvania, where it is legal, said Mr Martin De Luca, a member of the schoolteacher’s legal team.
Mr Witkoff’s plane was on the ground in Moscow for a few hours before leaving with Mr Fogel on board, flying through central Europe and back to Washington, Mr De Luca told Reuters.
“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,” the Fogel family said in a statement.
“This has been the darkest and most painful period of our lives, but today, we begin to heal.”
Mr Dmitry Ovsyannikov, who had served as Mr Fogel’s Russian lawyer in the past, told Russia’s Interfax news agency that Mr Fogel was last week transferred from a prison in Rybinsk, north of Moscow, to a pre-trial detention centre in Moscow ahead of his release.
Mr Fogel was left out of a historic swop
