Russian prosecutor wants U.S. ex-Marine Gilman jailed for nine years, RIA reports

Russian prosecutor wants U.S. ex-Marine Gilman jailed for nine years, RIA reports

A Russian prosecutor on Thursday sought a nine-year and one-month prison sentence for Robert Gilman, a former U.S. Marine who is already serving a prison sentence for attacking a police officer while drunk, the state-run RIA news agency reported.

The court will announce its verdict on Oct. 7, RIA said.

In October 2022, Gilman was sentenced to 4-1/2 years in a Russian penal colony for the attack on the police officer. The sentence was later reduced to 3-1/2 years.

His new trial, in the city of Voronezh 465 km (289 miles) south of Moscow, relates to his separate alleged assault of a prison official and a state investigator.

RIA said Gilman, whose lawyers have previously told the TASS news agency that he had come to Russia to study and obtain citizenship, had pleaded guilty to all the charges.

RIA cited him as telling the court that he had been forced to use violence after the prison inspector had caused pain to his genitalia and after the investigator had insulted his father.

Gilman is one of at least 10 U.S. nationals behind bars in Russia over two months after a prisoner swap between Moscow and the West on Aug. 1 freed 24 people, including three Americans.

In a separate trial, a verdict is due on Monday in the case of Stephen Hubbard, a 72-year-old American man whom Russia accuses of working as a mercenary for Ukraine.