Related Press (AP) — Delicate negotiations between the US and Russia led to basketball star Brittney Griner’s return Friday in change for infamous arms seller Viktor Bout, as soon as nicknamed “the Service provider of Demise.”
It is the most recent in a collection of high-profile prisoner swaps involving People detained overseas. Here’s a have a look at a few of the most notable exchanges.
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FRANCIS GARY POWERS, 1962
Maybe probably the most well-known one got here on the top of the Chilly Battle when Powers, a high-altitude U-2 spy airplane pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was exchanged on a German bridge for Russian spy Col. Rudolph Abel.
The swap was depicted in Steven Spielberg’s 2015 film “Bridge of Spies.”
Powers was criticized by some for permitting himself to be captured however cleared of wrongdoing. Paperwork declassified in 1998 present that Soviet intelligence gained no important info from him, in accordance his biography on the Nationwide Air and Area Museum’s web site.
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NICHOLAS DANILOFF, 1986
In August 1986, Gennadiy Zakharov, a 39-year-old Soviet physicist and United Nations worker, was arrested by the FBI on federal espionage expenses.
Days later Daniloff, the Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report, was arrested by the KGB after a Soviet acquaintance handed him a closed bundle containing maps marked “prime secret.”
The administration of President Ronald Reagan referred to as Daniloff’s detention a “setup,” although Moscow denied it was retaliation for Zakharov’s arrest.
That September, Daniloff was launched and Zakharov was allowed to depart the U.S.
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BOWE BERGDAHL, 2014
Bergdahl, a U.S. Army sergeant, was handed over to U.S. particular forces in Might 2014 after practically 5 years in captivity in Afghanistan and arrived at at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio the next month.
In change, the US launched 5 Taliban prisoners being held on the U.S. army jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Bergdahl had vanished from a base in Afghanistan’s Paktika province close to the border with Pakistan in June 2009 and was referred to as a deserter by some. He pleaded responsible to desertion and endangering his comrades in October 2017 and was dishonorably discharged, however was not imprisoned.
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TREVOR REED, 2022
Earlier this 12 months Reed, a Marine veteran imprisoned in Russia for practically three years, was swapped for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who had been serving a 20-year federal sentence for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.
Reed was arrested in summer season 2019 and later sentenced to 9 years in jail after Russian authorities mentioned he assaulted an officer whereas being pushed to a police station following an evening of heavy ingesting.
The U.S. authorities mentioned he was unjustly detained, and his household maintained his innocence.
Yaroshenko was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the united stateson drug trafficking expenses.
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US-IRAN SWAP, 2016
4 People together with Washington Put up reporter Jason Rezaian, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari had been launched from jail by Iranian authorities in January 2016.
The U.S. pardoned or dropped expenses towards seven Iranians.
Rezaian and Hekmati, who had been each charged with espionage by Tehran, mentioned they had been tortured whereas in custody. Abedini was detained for compromising nationwide safety, presumably due to Christian proselytizing.
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RUSSIAN SLEEPER AGENTS, 2010
In what was referred to as the most important spy swap because the finish of the Chilly Battle, 10 sleeper brokers who infiltrated suburban America had been sentenced to time served and deported in July 2010 after pleading responsible to conspiracy.
They included Anna Chapman, whose sultry photographs on social media websites made her a tabloid sensation.
They had been exchanged for 4 Russian prisoners convicted of spying for the West.
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Record compiled by Related Press author Mark Pratt in Boston.
