A US citizen facing drug charges in Russia appears in court. His case was adjourned until mid-May

MOSCOW — A US citizen arrested in Moscow on drug charges amid rising tensions between Russia and the US appeared in court on Thursday and his case was adjourned until mid-May.

Robert Woodland is accused of trafficking large quantities of illegal drugs as part of an organized group – a criminal offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He was taken into custody in January and the trial began in Ostankino District Court at the end of March.

“Our position is that, I may say, there is no evidence of drug sales in the materials on the case,” his lawyer Stanislav Kshevitskii told reporters.

The court set his next court date for May 14.

In January, the U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of the recent detention of a U.S. citizen and noted that this is “no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens abroad,” but refrained of further comment, with reference to privacy concerns. . The US embassy in Moscow issued a similar statement at the time.

Russian media noted that the suspect’s name matches that of a US citizen interviewed by the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2020.

In the interview, the man said that he was born in 1991 in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains and was adopted by an American couple at the age of 2. He said he traveled to Russia to find his Russian mother and eventually met her on a television show in Moscow.

The man told Komsomolskaya Pravda that he liked living in Russia and decided to move there. The newspaper reported that he had settled in the town of Dolgoprudny, just outside Moscow, and was working as an English teacher at a local school.

Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between Moscow and Washington have sunk to Cold War lows. Washington accuses Moscow of targeting its citizens and using them as a political bargaining chip, but Russian officials insist they have all broken the law.

Some have been exchanged for Russians held in the US, while for others the prospects of being released through an exchange are less clear.