AMERICAN DIPLOMATS CAN VISIT TOBBIN IN PRISON








WASHINGTON, MARCH 3, 2001. /RIA Novosti correspondent/ -- Representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow have already once visited John Eduard Tobbin and will be able to visit him again next week. 


	Tobbin, a 24-year-old postgraduate student of political  sciences at Voronezh State University was for the first time  detained on the night of January 24-25 at the entrance to one of the nightclubs. He has 15 marijuana doses on him. Tobbin was  taken to a district police station, where he was questioned in  the presence of his lawyer and released on his own recognizance. The next day police operatives searched his flat and found two grams of marijuana. 


	Andrei Makarov, investigator of the Interior Ministry  Department for the City of Voronezh, Central Russia, told RIA Novosti that on February 1 Tobbin was arrested for possession of narcotic drugs. Other charges - repeated cases of drug sales and organization and keeping of a narcotic den - have also been  raised against him. 


	Makarov is going to send Tobbin's case to court in the end  of March. The American can be sentenced to a prison term of up to ten years. 


	The Federal Security Service department for Voronezh region  has not raised any security charges against Tobbin.