Russia Sentences US Citizen Robert Woodland to 12 Years in Prison for Drug Trafficking

CNN
—

A U.S. citizen arrested in Moscow in January on drug-related charges has been sentenced to 12 years and six months in a maximum-security penal colony, according to a court statement released Thursday.

Robert Woodland was found guilty of attempting to traffic large quantities of illegal drugs as part of an organized group, Moscow's Ostankino District Court said.

Woodland's lawyers told reporters after the verdict that they would appeal the ruling because Woodland's guilt had not been proven, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Woodland suffers from unspecified mental health issues, her attorney Stanislav Kshevitsky told AP, without providing details. He added that the court did not consider those issues. CNN has reached out to her attorneys for comment.

Moscow prosecutors said Woodland was arrested on Jan. 3 while trying to hide a “large batch” of mephedrone after transporting the synthetic stimulant to a Moscow apartment. Prosecutors said he used the apartment to package the drug into 49 small packages for later illegal sale.

Woodland is an American citizen of Russian origin who was adopted by American scientists and returned to Russia 27 years later. He was born on December 7, 1991, and his real name is Roman Romanov. He is originally from the Perm Krai region, far from Moscow and just west of the Ural Mountains.

The pro-Kremlin tabloid Komosomolskaya Pravda reported in 2020 that Woodland was two years old when he was brought to the United States.

Woodland is among a dozen U.S. citizens and dual nationals currently detained in Russia, including Evan Gershkovich, the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War. Gershkovich’s espionage trial began in late June, nearly 15 months after he was first detained.

Western officials and analysts accuse Russia of using imprisoned Americans as political pawns. Commenting on the case of Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American citizen also on trial in Yekaterinburg after being accused of donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity, Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov told CNN that Russia’s goal was to “create a bank of hostages with American passports” that Moscow could use “as leverage” in any negotiations with Washington.

Paul Whelan, an American wrongly detained by the US State Department and currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage, told CNN in a phone call from his remote prison camp in Mordovia on Thursday that US President Joe Biden should treat his case as “he would if his own son was being held hostage.”