WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – According to the attorney, an official prisoner swap request has probably not been made yet.
"I asked whether he had been called to the prison administration…he was not called in, Yaroshenko was not asked whether he agrees to return to his homeland," Tarasov told RIA Novosti.
On Wednesday, Tarasov told Sputnik that Yaroshenko welcomes a potential prisoner swap with the United States that would result in his return to Russia.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov confirmed on Wednesday that Moscow is ready to exchange Yaroshenko for US prisoners. He explained that Russia has proposed US colleagues to use the 1983 Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.
The United States is among 18 non-Council of Europe states that are party to the convention.
On Friday, Tarasov told RIA Novosti that Yaroshenko had been allowed to buy food at the prison store, something he was prohibited to do last month.
Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to import more than $100 million worth of cocaine into the United States, was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and subsequently extradited to the United States.
