According to his parents, former US Marine Trevor Reed has started a hunger strike in a Russian prison to protest being held in solitary confinement and not receiving sufficient medical care despite fears of tuberculosis.

After being convicted of endangering the lives of two police officers while inebriated on a trip to Moscow in 2019, the 30-year-old Texan is receiving a nine-year sentence. He rejected the charges, and his trial was dubbed a “theatre of the ridiculous” by the US.

Reed, who is in a jail in the Mordovia region, was exposed to an inmate with active tuberculosis in December last year, but his parents stated on Wednesday that despite his rapidly deteriorating condition, their son had not been tested for the infection. After being convicted of endangering the lives of two police officers while inebriated on a trip to Moscow in 2019, the 30-year-old Texan is receiving a nine-year sentence. He rejected the charges, and his trial was dubbed a “theatre of the ridiculous” by the US.

He was admitted to a prison hospital for ten days, but was released last week without receiving “real medical care beyond an X-ray that was performed wrongly,” according to his lawyers.

“Trevor’s Mordovian lawyer was allowed to see him (on Tuesday) and confirmed that Trevor initiated a hunger strike… to protest being returned to solitary confinement while injured and suffering from tuberculosis,” the parents stated in a statement.

“Shortly after his return, Trevor requested that he be taken back to the IK-12 gulag. Authorities instead sent him back to solitary detention,” they alleged.

Reed went on a hunger strike to protest his arrest and claimed rights violations late last year, but he called it off over a week later after losing weight.

The Russian jail administration denied that he was rejecting food or that his rights were being abused.