Russian Court Charges Us Citizen With Drug Trafficking

Hearings of the case of US citizen John Edward Tobbin, who was arrested by local law-enforcements on April 1 and has been kept in the local detention centre all this time, have been launched in the court of Voronezh /Central Russia/ under the chairmanship of Tatyana Korchagina. A graduate of a US military intelligence college, John Tobbin secretly recorded by a digital dictophone his talks with local politicians, political scientists and teachers. Now it became clear that the American who came to Voronezh for humanitarian purposes, had numerously visited the premises of the Novovoronezhskaya nuclear power plant. According to head of the Russian Federal Security Service's PR Department in the Voronezh region Pavel Bolshunov, secret agents of Voronezh are thoroughly probing into the details of Tobbin's activities in the region, and some new facts have come out. Bolshunov also remarked that profound intelligence training might allow Tobbin to link his political research and the strategic nuclear power facility, though he has come up with no clear explanations so far. Investigator Andrei Makarov in charge of the case has said that Tobbin is facing charges pursuant to a number of articles at a time--organised illegal storage and trafficking of drugs and persuading others to try narcotics. Under these articles, the accused may be sentenced to 3-6 years of imprisonment.

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