American Paul Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence for espionage in a Russian labor camp. He claims they set him up.
There it goes. Whelan, 52, was arrested in December 2018. She traveled to Moscow to attend a wedding. He was arrested at a hotel after receiving a USB drive from an acquaintance. He was not aware that it was something dangerous. He believed that it contained photographs from his vacation days, according to his version.
Coincidentally, there was a raid for a counterintelligence operation. His family and the United States Government maintain that the accusation is baseless and that it all responds to a setup for President Vladimir Putin's revenue, a practice that Russia and other countries such as China, Iran or North Korea have increased for some time. .
Hearing his sentence in 2020, he said he thought it was the foregone conclusion, shouting from the glass-enclosed enclosure that "Russia feels powerless in the world, so it takes political hostages."
The return home of basketball star Brittney Griner, after ten months in Russian detention, has only increased the confrontation of the factions in the United States. Where is Whelan?, question the conservatives.
Griner is a black woman, lesbian, and one of many athletes who have spoken out against singing the national anthem before every game. Instead, Whelan is a white man, an ex-Marine turned corporate security executive. And he is not famous.
His resume states that he was a sheriff's deputy and that he served several times on the Iraqi front. He was discharged for misconduct in 2008 after being punished for theft charges, based on the military file revealed by various media in the US. Despite this stain, his circumstances make him the ideal character for Republicans to ride the attack on President Joe Biden. His predecessor, Donald Trump, intervened to make it ugly that Washington has handed over a criminal like Víktor But, an arms dealer known as the merchant of death, in exchange for a basketball player –said with a tone of contempt–, and more because, to him, she is "unpatriotic" while a veteran like Whelan is left to rot there. His former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, attacked Biden for "trading bad guys for celebrities."
Trump and Pompeo failed to get the ex-marine back. They say they refused a trade for But. David Whelan, the prisoner's brother, replied that the Trump administration "was not prepared or interested in fighting unfair detentions."
The White House maintains that it was Putin who did not accept a two for one. And he promises that the negotiation for the release of Paul Whelan continues.
