New Delhi: Despite attempts by the Trump and Biden administrations, former US Marine Paul Whelan has been detained in Russia since 2018 on charges of espionage. A high-profile prisoner swap — involving basketball player Brittney Griner and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout — that took place between the two countries Thursday initially included Whelan’s release as a condition. However, that part was unacceptable to Russia.
Whelan was arrested on charges of espionage while on a trip to Moscow in 2018. He is currently serving a 16-year sentence. This is the second time he has been left out of a prisoner swap. In April, another former US Marine, Trevor Reed, was exchanged for pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden told the media, “Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s.”
Whelan, speaking to CNN, confirmed this, stating that Russia had put him “a level higher” than Griner and Reed since he had been accused of being a spy.
While Reed had been accused of assaulting a police officer, Griner was arrested for bringing drugs, in the form of cannabis oil, into Russia.
Whelan was apprehended by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in 2018. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the ex-Marine was caught “red-handed”, with a flash drive stated to be containing “state secrets”.
Russian media, Rosbalt, claimed the flash drive that contained a list of employees of a classified security establishment. They claimed that his trips to Russian and activities on VKontakte, a Russian social media service, were part of the espionage.
Whelan maintains his innocence and claims he was “set up”. He alleges that he thought that the memory stick, given to him by an acquaintance, contained family photographs.
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‘I don’t understand why I’m still here’
After he was apprehended, Whelan remained in custody until 2020, when he underwent a closed-door trial and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. The then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo had demanded his release in a public statement.
Senior members of the Biden administration told the press Thursday that the return of Griner was made possible after months of talks and proposals. These included an aspect that Russia opposed, the freeing of Whelan.
Whelan told CNN in an interview Thursday that he was gravely disappointed greater efforts had not been made to secure his release, particularly because the fourth anniversary of his arrest had almost arrived. “I was arrested for a crime that never occurred. I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here,” he said.
‘Learning Russian’, larceny charges
Whelan, who holds passports from the US, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland, enlisted in the Marines as a reservist in 1993. He was deployed twice to Iraq, working as an administrative clerk and administrative chief, with work profiles similar to office management.
His service in the armed forces included domestic assignments in Arizona, California and Missouri. The Washington Post reported that it didn’t appear to involve anything related to Russia.
However, the report mentions that he did seem to have a personal interest in Russia, and a person deployed with him had recalled, “Whelan learning Russian…writing the Cyrillic alphabet on a board and taking the allotted holiday time to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
He was also active on the social media platform VKontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook. According to a report in The Guardian, he had maintained this profile for around a decade before his arrest. It contains several short messages in Russian, including “Forward, President Trump”.
Whelan was convicted in a 2008 court-martial on larceny charges and received a bad-conduct discharge before he joined the private sector — a security firm called Kelly Services. There, he rose to become the senior manager of global security and investigations. Yet again, the company states his job did not have a Russian component.
Former intelligence officers told the Washington Post that this record makes it unlikely that he would be chosen for espionage work. John Sipher, who used to run CIA operations in Russia, also told the publication that they would never send someone to Russia without diplomatic immunity.
What happens next?
President Biden has continued to emphasise continued efforts to bring the US national home. Meanwhile, he has drawn flak from Republicans and civil rights groups for not “prioritising” Whelan. Former Republican representative, Doug Collins was one such leader.
We prioritized Britney Griner, the WBNA celebrity, over a U.S. Marine Veteran still in Russia…
For an international arms dealer nicknamed the “Merchant Of Death”
What a slap in the face to Americans by Joe Biden
— Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) December 8, 2022
An official had told the press Thursday, that it wasn’t a situation where they even had a choice in which American came home. “It was a choice between bringing home one particular American — Brittney Griner — or bringing home none.”
Whelan’s family continues to remain tentative about the future. Speaking to CNN, his twin David said, “We do worry about what’s in Paul’s future.” He gave a voice to concerns that the US doesn’t have any concessions that the Russian government wants for Whelan.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
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