WASHINGTON — The State Department said Monday that U.S. officials were able to attend the arraignment Saturday of an American who was detained in Russia and that they are working to determine whether it is a case of wrongful detention.
U.S. citizen Michael Travis Leake was arrested in Moscow and appeared in court Saturday, the State Department confirmed, becoming the latest American to have been detained in Russia. Russian authorities accused him of selling drugs, according to the Moscow Court service, and he could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Leake appeared to reject the foundation of his arrest in a video that aired on Russian state TV. NBC News cannot verify when the video was made or whether Leake was under duress during its recording.
“I am an American citizen from birth. I have been formally accused about nothing. I don’t know why I’m here,” Leake said in the video. “I am not admitting to any guilt, and I do not believe that I have done what I have been accused of, because I don’t know what I’m being accused of.”
The State Department has tried to reach out to Leake’s family, an agency spokesperson said Monday, saying it was the department’s standard practice to reach out to the families of Americans detained overseas as soon as they are able to obtain permission from the person.
Leake’s mother, Glenda Garcia, confirmed Monday that she was in contact with the State Department. The Biden administration has yet to say whether it is evaluating Leake’s case as one of wrongful detention.
“We’ve been seeking to learn more about the apparent detention of Travis Leake, and we’re working to be not only in touch with him, to have consular access, but also with his family,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Monday. “My No. 1 priority as secretary of state is the safety and security of Americans abroad. And this is no exception. So we’re working to gather information to understand exactly what happened, and, of course, we will be very focused on this.”
The State Department has formally declared two other Americans held in Russia, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and businessman Paul Whelan as “wrongfully detained,” which allows its Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs to devote even more resources to secure their releases. In the case of American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who is also being held in Russia on drug charges, the State Department has yet to come to the same determination.
Leake served in the Air Force for less than a year in 1989. More recently, he has worked as a musician and the lead singer for the band LoviNoch, or “Seize the Night” in English, according to his social media pages. Photos show he has been in and out of Russia for at least the last decade, and he appeared in an interview with Anthony Bourdain on his CNN show, “Parts Unknown,” in 2014.
He described the music scene to Bourdain, the late chef, and spoke to the protest movement in Moscow. At one point during the interview, Leake claimed that a mic failure was due to government interference.
“They are blocking your signal,” he said, later adding, “I’m quite sure you’ve had someone on your tail the entire time you’ve been here.”
Phil McCausland, Courtney Kube, Hayley Walker and Irene Byon contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
