Freed Marine veteran Robert Gilman has arrived back on American soil — with his painfully gaunt appearance proof of how he was left “near-death” from years of abuse in a brutal Russian prison, according to his family and US officials.
Gilman, 32, was greeted with milkshakes and hamburgers when he touched down at Dulles airport on the outskirts of Washington, DC late Tuesday, hours after President Trump announced the US had secured his pardon from Russian President Vladimir Putin without a broader prison swap.
Gilman looked pale and haggard as he posed with an American flag on his flight back home.
After the brief stop in Dulles, Gilman was flown to San Antonio to receive medical and psychological care at Brooke Army Medical Center, WOAI-TV reported.
A US official who spoke with Gilman told Reuters
He was walking and talking and was evaluated on the flight by four doctors, according to an anonymous official.
“All things considered, he seems to be in good shape,” the official said.
Gilman, a Massachusetts teacher and retired Marine, became increasingly ill and was locked up in a psych ward for weeks in a “dissociative stupor” before his return, officials said.
He was initially convicted and sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for drunkenly kicking a police officer, although his family maintains he was sick and did not mean to assault the cop.
Russian authorities later accused Gilman of attacking prison officials and guards, resulting in additional convictions and extensions of his sentence, which had increased to 10 years by December.
Gilman’s sister, Lexie Hudson, accused Russian authorities of abusing her brother while he was in jail.
“The Russians treated my brother so badly,” she said. “They hurt him for no reason, other than that he was both an American and a Marine.”
Gilman’s health rapidly deteriorated in the weeks before his release, leaving him in a “near-death condition,” according to Mass. Sen. Ed Markey, who also worked to free Gilman.
Irina Brazhnikova, Gilman’s Russian attorney, told the Interfax news agency that Gilman had been hospitalized in the psych ward of a civilian hospital since early July because of a psychiatric condition.
She said doctors reported that his condition had worsened and that neither his attorneys nor his family had been allowed to visit him.
Eric Lebson, a chief strategy officer for Global Reach, an organization that worked to free Gilman, said he suffered a “dissociative stupor” for 47 days due to the abuse.
Markey accused Russian authorities of subjecting Gilman to physical torture, forced medication and provocations during his imprisonment.
Gilman was returned to the US without a broader prisoner swap on a “Humanitarian Basis,” Trump posted on X.
With Post Wires
