MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti) - Sverdlovsk district court of Bishkek has sentenced Brandon Cornelius, an employee of the US military transit center at Manas international airport near Kyrgyz capital, to four years in prison, the spokesperson of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan told RIA Novosti Monday.
"The verdict of Sverdlovsk district court was to sentence him to 4 years’ imprisonment in medium security penal colony, under article 234 (hooliganism) of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyzstan,” the Supreme Court press officer said.
Brandon Cornelius, 29, a native of Monterey, California, was detained by Bishkek police on March 9 after a local woman filed a complaint against him. The woman accused Cornelius of forcing her to have sex for money.
According to Bishkek police reports, Cornelius ignored the lawful demands of the officers to go to the police department and later, while being questioned about a complaint filed by a local woman, US citizen cursed at police officers, assaulted them physically and broke the desk in the police department.
The US authorities have not commented on the case yet.
Manas Transit Center, which was opened three months after 9/11 terrorist attacks and is located on the territory of Bishkek’s commercial airport, is a transit point for US military personnel coming and going from Afghanistan.
In 2010, Almazbek Atambayev, the President of Kyrgyzstan stated that military base in the civil airport must be closed down. Later, Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry handed the US ambassador a note of termination of the Transit Center activities starting from July 11, 2014.
