The parents of a former U.S. Marine held captive in Russia pleaded for information about him on Wednesday, expressing fears about his “rapidly declining health” and that “something terrible” had happened to him.
Joe and Paula Reed, who met last week with President Joe Biden about the plight of their son, Trevor, 30, said in a statement that it has been five days since he was last heard from, in a Friday phone call with his girlfriend.
“With each passing hour, we are more and more worried that something terrible has happened," the parents said in their statement. "We believe there is a rapidly closing window for the Biden administration to bring our son home.”
Russian news agencies reported Monday that Reed ended a hunger strike to protest his solitary confinement and was being treated in a prison medical center.
The younger Reed is serving a nine-year term after being convicted of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow in 2019. Reed denied the charges. The United States called his trial a "theater of the absurd.”
After his parents met with Biden, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the president reiterated his commitment to continue to work to secure Reed’s release and other Americans "wrongfully held in Russia and elsewhere.”
U.S.-Russia relations, however, are severely strained after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and U.S. imposition of economic sanctions, including new ones on Wednesday.
Some information in this report came from Reuters.
