Bi-partisan group of lawmakers demands Oakmont teacher be included in next prisoner swap with Russia
Over the holidays, Marc Fogel continued his 14-year sentence in a Russian hard labor penal colony, living through temperatures of -20 F.
“He does not respond to the question how are you, it’s dead silence, he doesn’t answer that question and he’s a chatty guy a very personable chatty person,” said Anne Fogel who’s Marc’s sister.
>> Family of Oakmont man detained in Russia demands answers, pleads for his freedom
Fogel was arrested in a Russian airport in 2021 for carrying medical marijuana with him. It was his last year serving as an international teacher with his wife before he was set to retire.
“Life with him in jail is kind of this suspended limbo kind of place because we believe he’s there because he’s an American not because he had 14 grams of medical marijuana,” Fogel said.
>> Oakmont man held in Russia to be moved to labor camp
His family continues to fight for him, and they aren’t alone. In just the last few weeks, Pennsylvania senators and members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of State asking that Fogel be included in the latest discussions of a prisoner swap with Russia. A letter that at this point has gone unanswered.
“Also, I have a bill called the Marc Fogel Act that would require the State Department to explain within 180 days why or why not a wrongfully detained person is not put on wrongfully detained status,” said Congressman Guy Reschenthaler.
That is the hold-up with Fogel’s case. The State Department continues to deny motions to move him to wrongfully detained status to get him included in prisoner swap conversations leaving a void in this family, especially for Fogel’s nearly 95-year-old mother.
“The field of pressure of having to live another 12 more years at 95 to see her son is just not an easy thing for her,” Fogel said.
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