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As the Biden administration celebrates the homecoming of one prominent American detained in Russia — basketball star Brittney Griner — it’s pledging to continue working to secure the release of another who’s been there even longer.
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan was detained in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges, found guilty in a closed trial and is now nearly three years into a 16-year prison sentence. He denies the accusations, and U.S. officials have denounced his trial as unfair.
At the end of November, 52-year-old Whelan was briefly transferred from a penal colony to a prison hospital. He spoke to his family last Friday, after a week of silence that had prompted concern in the White House over his whereabouts and condition.
“He is probably as well as you could be in a Russian labor camp,” his twin brother David told NPR in April. “They don’t provide nutritional meals, and they don’t really take too much care of the prisoners. There’s a lot of corruption and other abuse. So I think he does his best to stay out of people’s way.”
Speaking to CNN from a penal colony in remote Russia on Thursday, Whelan expressed surprise that he wasn’t included in the prisoner swap and frustration that the Biden administration has not done more to secure his release.
“I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,” he said. “I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here.”
President Biden said Thursday that “sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s.” Whelan told CNN that he had been told that because Russia accused him of being a spy, it had put him “at a level higher” than Griner and Trevor Reed, who was released in April.
