A U.S. citizen is facing criminal assault charges in Russia after allegedly attacking a police officer in a Moscow hotel, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday.
The reports cited Russia’s Investigative Committee as saying the American became abusive after being asked to show his documents at an upscale hotel on Monday evening.
“At night on August 12, 2024, a U.S. citizen was brought to a Moscow police station in connection with his hooliganism,” the committee said in a statement. “The suspect refused to provide his identity documents, after which he used violence against a law enforcement officer.”
The Investigative Committee did not give the American’s name; news reports citing unnamed sources gave several variants of the name.
The arrested person is to appear in court on Thursday, facing charges of using violence against a government official that could bring five years in prison, the reports said.
In May, a Moscow court said that it had sentenced a U.S. citizen to 10 days in detention for petty hooliganism after he allegedly stumbled drunkenly into a children’s library and passed out.
Several other Americans are serving sentences in Russia on drugs or theft convictions.
A U.S.-Russian dual national, Ksenia Khavana, is expected to be sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty in a closed trial to raising money for Ukraine’s military; prosecutors called for a 15-year term.
Earlier this year, Chris Van Heerden, a former world champion boxer and Khavana’s boyfriend, spoke to CBS News about the fight to bring her back.
Van Heerden said he and Khavana met in 2020 in Los Angeles and have been romantically involved for the past six months. The couple celebrated the new year together in Istanbul, Turkey, before Khavana flew to her family’s hometown of Yekaterinburg, Russia, about 1,100 miles east of Moscow.
“She was just so excited to go back home because she misses her grandparents,” Van Heerden said. “And that was the purpose of me buying that ticket. I bought her that ticket, and I’m so angry at myself, but I didn’t know.”
In the largest Russia-West prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War, Russia this month released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and American corporate security executive Paul Whelan, both of whom were imprisoned on espionage convictions. Russia also released U.S.-Russian dual national Alsu Kurmasheva, a Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe journalist sentenced to 6 1/2 years for spreading “false information” about the Russian military.
The three returned to the United States as part of a 24-person prisoner swap among the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other countries.
AFP contributed to this report.