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(CNN) — The family of an American schoolteacher serving a 14-year prison sentence at a hard labor camp in Russia is hopeful for his release after the US government recently designated him as “wrongfully detained,” following a yearslong plea for greater efforts to secure his return.
Marc Fogel, 61, worked for nearly a decade as a history teacher at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, where children of US diplomats were among his students.
He was arrested in August 2021 at an airport in Moscow while returning for the school year, after he was found carrying cannabis. He had traveled into the country with about 17 grams of cannabis, which his family and lawyer said was recommended by a doctor to treat “severe spinal pain.”
In June 2022, he was found guilty in a court just outside of Moscow of committing “large-scale drugs smuggling” – the same court where the trial of detained WNBA player Brittney Griner took place – and given the 14-year sentence at a Russian hard labor camp.
The US State Department said Friday that it had designated Fogel as being wrongfully detained, according to the Associated Press, a classification that allows the government to undertake active diplomatic efforts to secure his release.
Fogel was not part of a massive prisoner swap last August that resulted in the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan. Fogel’s family said it was “completely heartbroken and outraged,” in a statement released at the time.
“The United States has been working to secure Marc Fogel’s release for some time. We have long called for his humanitarian release and tried to include him in the August 1 deal, but were unable to,” the State Department said in a statement, according to AP.
CNN has reached out to the State Department.
Fogel’s sister, Anne, told CNN on Tuesday that her family is pleased by the government’s decision to formally designate her brother as wrongfully detained.
“We’ve been assured that he is prioritized, which is what we have been fighting for three-and-a-half years,” she told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “OutFront.” “We do believe that there is a plan.”
Multiple appeals against Fogel’s 14-year sentence have failed in the Russian court, and the US government had also asked Russia to release him on humanitarian grounds, due to his age and chronic back pain.
“He’s very anxious to get out of Russia at this point. It’s wintertime and there was a fire at the penal colony he lives in,” Anne Fogel said. Her brother’s barracks had been overcrowded after the barracks of some prisoners burned in the fire, she added.
“We’re going to get you home and it is going to happen,” she said.
The State Department considers a range of factors in deciding whether to designate an American jailed in a foreign country as wrongfully detained, including if there’s credible information that the person is innocent, if the person is being held for the primary purpose of influencing US policy or securing concessions from the US government, according to AP.
The designation moves Fogel’s case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs within the State Department.
The-CNN-Wire
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