Pubdate: Sun, 05 Aug 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Michael Wines

RUSSIA RELEASES STUDENT

John E. Tobin Jr., the Fulbright scholar from Connecticut, was freed from a 
Russian prison camp after his captors told a local court that he had been a 
model inmate, good at woodworking, sports and churchgoing. No one mentioned 
the case's bizarre course: Russian accusations that he was not only a drug 
user but an American spy-in-training (he once served in an Army reserve 
intelligence unit) -- and his own allegation that Russian agents 
manufactured the drug charge after he refused to become their informant. 
Mr. Tobin was silent after his release from a prison sentence that once 
totaled 37 months. But the warden gave him souvenirs and promised to e-mail.
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