Russia has sentenced an American man to 5 years in jail for illegally transporting weapons, a court docket mentioned Monday, noting {that a} rifle was discovered on his yacht after it docked within the port metropolis of Sochi final June. Russian media mentioned he smuggle the weapons on his personal yacht from July 2024 – June 2025.
Dozens of Westerners, together with People, have been imprisoned in Russia, particularly after the beginning of the Ukraine war in 2022, with a lot of them later swapped in prisoner exchanges.
“A U.S. citizen was discovered responsible of illegally transporting and transferring firearms,” the regional court docket’s’ press service mentioned in a press release.
It recognized him as Charles Wayne Zimmerman and mentioned he “admitted his guilt in full” and was “sentenced to 5 years in jail.”
It did not point out when the person was sentenced however mentioned an enchantment in opposition to the conviction had been rejected.
It was the primary time his arrest and conviction has been talked about in Russian media, which often cowl judicial proceedings of international residents intently.
In response to the court docket, the person sailed throughout the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
It cited him as saying he’d met a Russian girl on-line and determined to go to her and that he did not know he was forbidden to maintain a weapon on his yacht whereas it was docked in Russia.
In September 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard East issued a missing person alert for a man identified as Charles Zimmerman, 57, who departed on a crusing journey from Fort Macon, North Carolina, to New Zealand.
“Zimmerman was final heard from on July 23 (2024). He had knowledgeable a member of the family that he can be departing in his crusing vessel en path to the Mediterranean Sea,” the Coast Guard mentioned on Fb.
He was crusing on a 35-foot inexperienced and white-hulled vessel named the Trude Zena, it added.
In asserting Zimmerman’s sentence, the Russian court docket revealed on social media a slideshow that included a video of a white crusing boat and pictures of a sniper rifle and ammunition allegedly discovered on board, and of a person sitting on the vessel.
Washington accuses Moscow of imprisoning U.S. nationals with a purpose to swap them for Russian spies held overseas.
