Top members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs have submitted a resolution demanding that Russia free Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine jailed by the country who U.S. officials suspect is being used as a political bargaining chip.
Reed, 29, from Granbury, Texas, was sentenced by a Moscow court to nine years in a Russian penal colony in late July, after already spending over a year in detention. He was convicted of assaulting two police officers, but in his trial police presented virtually no evidence Reed had actually done so and repeatedly contradicted their stories.