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Russia releases American Joseph Tater after holding him in a psychiatric clinic

2025-06-07 11:53:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

American citizen Joseph Tater has left Russia after being held in Moscow since August last year on charges of abusing hotel staff - which he denies - and then being moved to a psychiatric clinic, Russian news agency TASS reported.

Tater was detained in Moscow on August 12, 2024, on charges of “hooliganism” and held in prison for 15 days. His detention was extended after the Russian Investigative Committee began investigating a more serious charge, that of using violence against a police officer.

On April 6, a court ordered Tater to be moved from a detention center to mandatory psychiatric treatment. According to state media, the court said he was not criminally responsible for his actions, as he had been diagnosed with a mental disorder.

According to TASS, Tater was released from the psychiatric clinic on June 6.

Several sources told the Russian agency that the clinic had no reason to keep Tater and released him for non-hospital treatment.

TASS said Tater is no longer in Russia, but his whereabouts are unknown.

Neither the US Embassy in Moscow nor the US State Department have commented on this case.

Earlier, the Reuters news agency quoted a Kremlin source as saying that Tater was one of nine Americans being held in Russia that the United States had sought to include in a prisoner exchange.

This information came after Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said that the exchange was discussed between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in their phone conversation on May 20.

Washington and Moscow have already carried out two prisoner exchanges since Trump took office in January.

In April, Russian-American citizen Ksenia Karelina, who was imprisoned in Russia for donating $51 to a Ukrainian but US-based charity, was released in exchange for Arthur Petrov, a German-Russian citizen suspected of exporting sensitive microelectronics.

In February, the United States released Russian cybercriminal Aleksandr Vinnik in exchange for American teacher Marc Fogel./ REL