Russian Parole Board Backs Release of American Student

MOSCOW â€”  American Fulbright scholar John Edward Tobin won a recommendation that he be released as early as today from the Russian prison where he is serving a drug sentence, and Russian authorities appeared eager to end his high-profile imprisonment.

Tobin, 24, became eligible for parole Thursday, and the parole board unanimously recommended he be released, satisfied by his behavior at the prison in the southern town of Rossosh.

The recommendation must be confirmed by a court, which was scheduled to convene this morning at the prison.

“We have to get rid of this headache for the [prison] administration,� Judge Boris Gladko of the Rossosh City Court said. Gladko received the parole board’s recommendation Thursday afternoon.

Tobin was arrested in January amid strains in U.S.-Russian relations, which were exacerbated by the Russian Federal Security Service’s claims that Tobin was a spy in training. No espionage charges were filed, however, and Tobin said he was framed on the drug charges because he refused to work for Russian intelligence.

Tobin’s case has been taken up by members of Congress from his home state of Connecticut; they have written to Russian officials and lobbied President Bush to press the issue in his meetings with President Vladimir V. Putin.

Tobin’s father, also named John Tobin, told Reuters that he expects his son home sometime next week.

Prison officials have said that if the commission’s decision is approved, Tobin will probably be freed the day of the court hearing. But Nikolai Kravchenko, the warden of the prison where Tobin was being held, said the law gives the prison seven days to carry out a court decision.

Kravchenko said Tobin had been learning woodworking at the prison and playing pingpong and “so-so� chess.

Tobin, who was doing political science research in Voronezh, about 300 miles south of Moscow, was convicted in April of obtaining, possessing and distributing marijuana. He was sentenced to 37 months in prison. A higher court overturned the distribution conviction and reduced the sentence to a year.