.A past USA paratrooper as well as stone performer detained in Russia much more than a year ago on drug charges was sentenced to 13 years behind bars on Thursday, the Moscow court system's media company claimed.Michael Travis Leake, who faced the Moscow-based stone band Lovi Noch, was actually apprehended in June 2023 after district attorneys accused him of "organizing a medication handling service involving young people.".Moscow's Khamovnitchesky Court located him responsible of criminal activities connected to the purchase of illegal anesthetics, the courthouse's press service claimed in a blog post on Telegram. He was actually penalized to thirteen years in a maximum-security prison colony.Leake was actually jailed along with Veronika Grabanchuk, an additional defendant sentenced of drug costs. Her association to Leake was actually certainly not instantly very clear.Arrests of U.S. people in Russia have actually raised lately, in what Washington considers a Kremlin ploy to safeguard the release of Russians pronounced guilty abroad.And many more United States citizens held in Russian prisons are previous marines Robert Gilman and also Paul Whelan, in addition to journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva.