Former US marine Paul Whelan’s lawyer says that she no longer knows where he’s being held, four years after he was sentenced on espionage charges in Russia.
His attorney, Olga Karlova told the media this week she had sent a request to the prison colony where he is serving out his term in order to find out where he is.
A number of Russian dissidents and people convicted for their opposition to Moscow‘s war in Ukraine have disappeared from Russian prisons in recent days, in what rights activists say is a possible sign that a prisoner swap with the West involving people like Whelan, 54, may be close.
Whelan a corporate security executive from Michigan, was arrested in 2018 in Moscow, where he was attending a friend’s wedding. He maintains his innocence, saying the charges were fabricated.
In December, the State Department said it had made a significant offer for Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich but Russia rejected it. Gershkovich is not thought to have been one of the prisoners who has been moved.
Corporate security executive Paul Whelan, 54, was arrested in 2018 while in Russia for a friend’s wedding.
There has been no official confirmation from the Kremlin but numerous reports have said that moving prisoners is considered to be an indication that a swap is imminent
Whelan has Irish, British and Canadian citizenship.
‘I receive requests from journalists from various international agencies asking me to clarify whether I know Paul’s whereabouts, as there are rumors of a possible exchange,’ his lawyer told Interfax, the Russian news agency.
‘I have sent a request to the [prison] colony administration, but I’m not getting an answer.’
He is the only non-Russian national who has been moved from their penal colonies.
The others are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, Memorial head Oleg Orlov, Navalny associates Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and anti-war activist Sasha Skochilenko.
Officials never gave details on the attempted December 2023 swap. Russian President Vladimir Putin, asked about releasing Gershkovich, pointed to a man imprisoned by a U.S. ally for ‘liquidating a bandit’ who had allegedly killed Russian soldiers in Chechnya.
That appeared to refer to Vadim Krasikov, serving a life sentence in Germany in 2021 for the killing of Zelimkhan ‘Tornike’ Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent.
WNBA legend Brittney Griner said in an April interview she wished that Paul Whelan joined her on the flight back to the US
During a News Nation interview with Natasha Zouves in May, Whelan’s brother, David Whelan described the bleak state his brother now finds himself in five years into his captivity.
‘He’s just disintegrating, and will continue to do so,’ said David.
‘His cognitive mental health is deteriorating. We’re starting to get a sense of that in the phone calls. He’s got physical problems. He’s got a cracked tooth he can’t get fixed.’
Whelan was quoted as saying in 2023 that he felt ‘abandoned’ by the Biden administration as he had been left out of prison swaps.
In April, WNBA star Brittney Griner told Robin Roberts on ABC’s 20/20 that she thought that Paul Whelan would be on the same plane as her taking them home to the USA.
‘When I walked on and I didn’t see him, I was like, okay, maybe I’m early. Maybe he’s next. Maybe they’re going to bring him next,’ she said.
‘And when they closed the door, I was like, “Are you seriously not going to let this man come home right now?”‘
Griner was traded for Viktor Bout, an arms dealer given the nickname ‘the Merchant of Death.’
She says that the US government should have pushed harder to try and bring both herself and Whelan back.
‘If it was left up to me in that trade, I would have went and got Paul and brought him home,’ Griner says.
