American political pundit and former cable news show host Tucker Carlson broke the solemn news on Friday, 12 January that Gonzalo Lira, a Chilean-American political commentator held in captivity in Ukraine, passed away at age 55. Carlson was informed by Lira’s father, whom he interviewed last month.
‘Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture,’ he wrote on X in the post announcing the passing.
And Carlson was not the only one to lay heavy criticism on the Biden administration for not doing enough to free the American citizen journalist arrested for political opinions. Entrepreneur David Sacks also shared his thoughts on X, claiming ‘the Biden administration could have gotten Gonzalo Lira back with a phone call but didn’t lift a finger’.
A State Department spokesperson also confirmed ‘the death of a US citizen in Ukraine’ to an inquiry by Newsweek, and also offered ‘sincerest condolences to the family on their loss’. However, the exact circumstances of Lira’s death are unknown, although prior statements made by the deceased make it likely that it was brought on by mistreatment or torture by prison guards or other inmates.
Gonzalo Lira was arrested in May 2023, for his YouTube videos which went against the official narrative of the Ukrainian government about the war. He was eventually allowed bail in late July. During that time, he was able to share public posts on the internet. He even posted the English translation of his indictment, which revealed that he was being charged with the ‘production and distribution of materials containing the justification, recognition as legitimate, [or] denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine’.
In the videos he posted at that time,
he claimed to have been tortured in prison. Lira also claimed that if he is convicted he will certainly die in a labour camp.
Tragically, he was wrong on that. He did not even have to wait for a conviction to perish in the captivity of the Zelenskyy regime. He died while awaiting trial in custody.
In early August, Lira, while out on bond, Lira tried to flee to Hungary and ask for political asylum there. He got within a few miles of Hungary, however, before managing to cross he was apprehended at the border by authorities.
As early as September, the right-wing online news outlet Breitbart, upon being informed by the State Department that Lira was still in custody in Ukraine, pointed out that tens of billions of dollars the US sends to Ukraine to help their war effort gives the Biden admin plenty of leverage to ask for the release of a US citizen. They were also the ones to highlight the fact that Lira was never accused of actually coordinating with Russian state entities—he was just sharing his opinion that the Kyiv government found objectionable…
Lira’s death has at last garnered some not explicitly hostile coverage of his plight from major American news outlets such as the aforementioned Newsweek, as well as Yahoo News, MSN, and The Daily Caller. However, the largest of them all, such as NBC, ABC, and CNN are still silent on the issue—as they have been the entire time while Mr Lira was fighting for his life in the prison of a US-allied country…
Related articles:
