GRANBURY, Texas — Former Marine Trevor Reed has filed a petition with the United Nations, asking the entity to recognize Russia wrongfully imprisoned him for nearly three years.
In his 13,000-word petition, Reed describes the injustices suffered, including being subjected him to phony judicial proceedings that ignored exculpatory evidence, being denied bail on spurious grounds, infringing his right to counsel and access to U.S. diplomatic assistance, and being beaten and abused in a gulag.
For 985 days, Reed was held in a series of Russian prisons, thrown in isolation cells as small as a closet for 23 hours a day, placed in a psychiatric ward and sent to a forced labor camp he described as looking and feeling like something "out of medieval times,” ABC News reported.
Reed was freed on April 27 as part of a prisoner swap agreed between the Biden administration and the Kremlin. The former Marine was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot from Russia who was sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.
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Reed's petition also asks Russia to pay him reparations.
Reed also recently has come to the defense of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in a Russian airport after officials allegedly found cannabis in her luggage.
“We need to all speak out for these Americans, because every single one of us is an American,” Reed said at a Houston rally advocating for Griner's release. “Every day that you’re in prison there, it’s like you’re waking up to a nightmare. There is no justice in Russia. Brittney and Paul [Whelan] will not receive justice in Russia... they will not receive a fair trial in Russia.”
Griner's detention was extended on June 14 through July 2, according to Russian state news.