"I tried to help, too, but everything was in vain, because, you know, the words that Barack Obama used to say 'we are an exceptional nation' probably matters. This exceptionalism, it seems, somehow magically acts on all US citizens, including the FBI and the NSA," Kucherena told the Rossiya 24 broadcaster, answering a question about the cases of Bout and Yaroshenko.
The lawyer also stressed that the United States used "barbaric methods."
"Apparently, this exceptionalism, which they have appropriated for themselves, allows them to violate human rights in the grossest manner. In the situation in which our citizens are today… the Russian Foreign Ministry, we must do everything possible to seek their release, but unfortunately we are not heard there, so they absolutely disregard the law and human rights," Kucherena, who is also the chairman of the Non-Governmental Council under the Russian Interior Ministry, concluded.
In 2011, Russian pilot Yaroshenko was sentenced to 20 years in prison on allegations of conspiring to import more than $100 million worth of cocaine into the United States. He was captured in Liberia in 2010 and turned over to the United States, prompting protests from Russia. In April 2016, the Appeal Court of New York denied revising the pilot's sentence.
