Adrian-David Kercho is a political prisoner
A young Romanian citizen who traveled to Abkhazia to visit his girlfriend was handed over to Russia. There, he was tortured, accused of espionage, and sentenced to 15 years in prison
Adrian-David Kercho is a Romanian citizen who lived in England. He traveled to different countries and was interested in airsoft and technology. At the age of 22, he traveled to the partially recognized republic of Abkhazia to marry a woman he had met online. However, what began as a romantic story turned into a political thriller.
Adrian-David did small repair jobs while waiting for an opportunity to move to Britain with his fiancée. Several months later, in November 2024, Abkhaz security forces detained him on suspicion of espionage. Kercho was placed under administrative arrest and told that he would be deported to his home country. Instead, he was taken to the Russian border and handed over to Russian security services.
For four months, from December 2024 to April 2025, Adrian-David Kercho was held in a detention facility in Sochi. The authorities repeatedly subjected him to short administrative arrests and convinced him that if he confessed to espionage, he would simply be deported from Russia to Romania or exchanged. The FSB then tortured the young man, forcing him to confess that he had sent Ukrainian intelligence officers photographs of an air-defense system taken with a drone and intended to later fight on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as part of a non-existent “British Legion.” On March 5, 2026, a court sentenced Kercho to 15 years in a maximum-security penal colony.
The prosecution’s case against Kercho was based on a confession extracted under torture. Its version contains internal inconsistencies and contradicts the initial account given by the Abkhaz security service. Kercho does not speak Russian and was denied access to an interpreter and a lawyer for several months after his detention. His family was not notified of his detention or charges, and the Romanian consul was never allowed to visit him in the detention center.
It is highly likely that no crime was actually committed: the young foreigner simply attracted the attention of the security services and became an easy target for them. We believe that the case against Kercho was fabricated by the security services to improve their performance statistics and create a pool of convicted prisoners for potential future exchanges.
A detailed description of Adrian-David Kercho’s case and of our position is available on our website.
How can you help?
You can write to Adrian-David Kercho at the following address:
Ru:
350001, г. Краснодар, ул. Воронежская, д. 42, ФКУ СИЗО-1 ГУФСИН России по Краснодарскому краю, Керчо Давид-Адриан, 2002 г. р.
En:
Pre-trial Detention Facility No. 1, Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for Krasnodar Krai, 42 Voronezhskaya St., Krasnodar, 350001, Russia, Kercho David-Adrian, born 2002.
Please note that letters in languages other than Russian are highly unlikely to reach the intended recipient.
You can also send an electronic letter via ZT (payment with any bank card), F-Pismo (payment with Russian cards), or PrisonMail (payment with foreign cards).
You can donate to help all political prisoners in Russia.
