American journalist Gonzalo Lira has died in a Ukrainian prison, according to show host Tucker Carlson.
Carlson posted on X on Friday evening:
Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments. Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several weeks ago we spoke to his father, who predicted his son would be killed.
Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments. Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several… https://t.co/F0nOG9qGvv
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 12, 2024
In early December, Carlson interviewed Lira’s father, who blamed President Joe Biden and the State Department for allowing his son to languish in a Ukrainian prison for criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government, the West’s response to the Russian invasion, and President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Lira is a dual citizen of Chile and the U.S., and was living in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv at the time of the invasion last year, as reported by Breitbart News’s Kurt Zindulka. He began giving his on-the-ground perspective of the war, attributing it to Western antagonism to Moscow.
Lira was arrested multiple times, and was last imprisoned for attempting to cross the border of Ukraine and seek asylum in Hungary. He faced multiple years in prison under Ukraine’s wartime propaganda laws, being accused of having “criminal intent aimed at the manufacture, distribution materials containing justification, recognition as legitimate, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine…as well as justification, recognition as legitimate of the temporary occupation of part of Ukraine territory.”
He was also reportedly accused of publishing videos with the faces of Ukrainian soldiers, despite many such videos being freely available online and published by news outlets.
“The charges against me are just because of my opinion about this conflict, I did no harm to anyone,” Lira claimed before his latest imprisonment.
In September, the State Department confirmed to Breitbart News that it was aware of Lira being imprisoned in Ukraine, saying in a statement:
We are aware of the detention of Mr. Lira in Ukraine. We take our role in assisting U.S. citizens abroad seriously and are providing all appropriate assistance. We are monitoring the situation but have no further comment at this time. We reiterate our message that U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict.
Lira’s father told Carlson in December the State Department had “not done a thing” to help Lira. “The embassy has just burned out Gonzalo. An American citizen by birth is in jail because he was exercising his right of freedom of speech,” Lira’s father said.
“The U.S.A. government, with its silence in the face of this scandalous incident, suggests a degree of complicity, or at least tacit approval of Gonzalo’s arrest since nothing else explains the conspicuous lack of response,” he said.
Lira has said in the past that the Chilean embassy has done more to look out for his wellbeing than the American embassy, and said he suffered physical abuse inside Ukrainian prisons.
X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk had questioned Lira’s imprisonment in Ukraine, asking how it was possible that “an American citizen is in prison in Ukraine after we sent over a $100 billion.”
“Is there more to this story than simply criticizing Zelensky? If that’s all it is, then we have [a] serious problem here,” Musk posted.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) had called it a “disgrace.”
“Ukraine is holding an American journalist hostage. This is a disgrace. And why is the Biden admin opening up the checkbook without any accountability?”
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