MOSCOW (AFP) — The US embassy in Moscow on Tuesday slammed as "harsh" the sentencing of a US cleric to three years and two months in jail for smuggling a box of rifle ammunition into Russia.
Philip Miles, a pastor from the US-based Christ Community Church, was arrested February 3, a few days after 20 rifle rounds were found by customs officers in his luggage at a Moscow airport.
A Moscow court jailed him Monday.
"We're deeply disappointed in yesterday's verdict and concerned that pastor Miles will have to spend additional time incarcerated in Russia," a spokeswoman for the embassy told AFP.
Miles, from the state of South Carolina, brought the 25 dollar (16 euro) box of Winchester rifle cartridges to Russia as a present for a friend.
After the trial, Miles said he regretted what had happened, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
"The sentence of three years and two months is harsh for what Mr Miles has admitted was an error," said the embassy spokeswoman. The embassy will lobby the Russian government for a reduction in Miles' sentence, she added.
Miles will appeal the sentence, his lawyer Vladimir Ryakhovsky told daily newspaper The Moscow Times on Tuesday.
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