You're reading: Russia puts 12 more US citizens on entry ban list

Moscow – Moscow has put 12 more U.S. citizens on its entry ban list in response to blacklisting 12 Russians. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry said some of the U.S. citizens now denied entry to Russia are responsible for the legalization and application of torture to Guantanamo Bay detention camp inmates, including Rear Adm. Richard Butler, commander of the Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, who “sanctioned the forcible ending of detainees’ hunger strike,” and Gladys Kessler, Senior United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, who “found the forcible ending of a hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp legal.”

The Russian blacklist also contains U.S. military servicemen responsible for torture and abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or for covering up the crimes committed there, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who served as the commander of the Coalition Forces in Iraq in 2003-2004 during the Abu Ghraib scandal, and Janis Karpinski, the chief of the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003-2004, who covered up violence against inmates and who was demoted from brigadier general to colonel following an investigation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.