Comment by High Commissioner on Bogdana Osipova’s Case
On November 5, the US Court of Appeals ruled to release Russian citizen Bogdana Osipova.
"As the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, I was extremely concerned about the situation around Russian citizen Bogdana Osipova, who had been convicted in the United States for alleged extortion and «kidnapping» of her own daughter.
In 2014, a pregnant woman left the United States with a child from her first marriage and a juvenile daughter from a US citizen. Having returned to the United States in 2017 to resolve disputes with her husband, Bogdana Osipova was detained. The Russian woman was accused of kidnapping her own children and extortion. In 2019, the court found the woman guilty of kidnapping and extortion and sentenced her to 7 years in prison, which she was serving at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.
In case of being contracted the new coronavirus infection, Osipova’s life would be put at risk due to her being in poor health and suffering from multiple chronic diseases such as Reynaud’s disease, Lyme disease and Ciguatera poisoning nerve damage.
On August 14, I turned to US Attorney General William Barr with a request to support the petition of the Russian woman Bogdana Osipova to change her punishment in the form of detention to not related to imprisonment," Tatiana Moskalkova commented on the situation.
After petitions by the High Commissioner and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, on August 21, 2020, the US Court of Appeals dismissed Bogdana Osipova from the extortion charges, as well as the demand for the Russian woman to pay the expenses incurred by the lawyer of her
Today, on November 5, the US Court of Appeals ruled to release Russian citizen Bogdana Osipova and place her under house arrest pending a new decision in the extortion case.
Thanks to the joint efforts of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, serious positive progress has been achieved in the case of a Russian citizen.
