Putin pardons US citizen imprisoned in Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned US citizen Gilman, who had been held in a Russian prison since 2022. He is reportedly already on a plane bound for the United States.
The US State Department announced on Tuesday that 32-year-old American Gilman had been released from custody in Russia on "humanitarian grounds." The department stressed that no prisoner exchange took place. Reuters reports that Gilman was pardoned by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Gilman had been imprisoned in Russia since 2022. The White House and the State Department had long pushed for his release so he could receive medical treatment in the United States. He had most recently been held in a prison in Voronezh, from where he was later taken to a hospital. Relatives say he has been in a state of dissociative stupor since June, and he had previously reported being tortured and injected with mind-altering substances. Media reports say Gilman is already on a flight heading to the US.
How the case unfolded
Gilman was detained in January 2022 and sentenced that October to three and a half years in prison for beating a police officer, after being removed from a train while drunk for causing a disturbance. He was later accused of further offenses — assaulting a prison inspector during a cell check, beating an investigator, and attacking a prison guard — for which he received an eight-year, one-month sentence in October 2024. Last year, his sentence was extended to 10 years following a new conviction for assaulting prison guards.
Gilman's father, who had emigrated from the USSR, wrote in the Boston Globe that the charges against his son were false. The US State Department has likewise said Gilman was wrongfully detained.
