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For over a decade, he was generally known as Viktor Muller Ferreira, a Brazilian pupil with a eager curiosity in worldwide affairs and a love of dancing.
However final 12 months, as he flew to the Netherlands to begin an internship on the Worldwide Prison Court docket in The Hague, Dutch authorities refused him entry to the nation and accused him of being a Russian spy.
He was no Brazilian pupil, they stated, however in reality he was Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, a 36-year-old Russian officer working undercover with the GRU, Russia’s army intelligence company.
The alleged Russian spy is now again in Brazil, the place he’s serving a 15-year jail sentence for doc fraud associated to his pretend id. Authorities in the US have pushed to have him extradited, noting that he studied in Washington at Johns Hopkins College College of Superior Worldwide Research.
However he can also be utilized in a possible prisoner swap with Russia, the place U.S. residents, comparable to journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, have been arrested on espionage fees that U.S. officers have dismissed as politically motivated.
Russia has denied that Cherkasov is a spy, whereas additionally claiming he’s needed for crimes in Russia and looking for to extradite him again house from Brazil.
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