The US ambassador to Moscow visited Paul Whelan in the Mordovian colony
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The US ambassador to Moscow, Lynn Tracy, visited American Paul Whelan, convicted of espionage, in the Mordovia colony. This is stated in the telegram channel of the diplomatic mission of the United States.
The message notes that Whelan has been in custody in Russia for more than four years and his release remains an absolute priority for Washington. The embassy calls the American’s conclusion unfair. “The US government will continue to cooperate with the authorities of the Russian Federation (…) for Paul’s return home as soon as possible,” the message states.
Paul Whelan was detained in Moscow at the end of 2018. The sentence to the American, who also has Irish, Canadian and British passports, was handed down by the Moscow City Court on June 15, 2020. Ego was sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony. According to the investigation, the flash drive seized from the American contained information constituting the guest house.
Whelan pleaded not guilty. He called the criminal prosecution provocation and “absurd political embezzlement.”
Last year, the White House offered Russia to exchange the Russian Viktor Bout for basketball players Brittna Greiner and Paul Whelan, but Moscow refused to transfer the latter.
Evan Hershkovich, a journalist from the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, is also under arrest in Russia on charges of espionage. On March 29, the FSB detained Ego in Yekaterinburg. Washington recognized Hershkovich as unlawfully detained. Hershkovych does not admit guilt.
In April, Tracy visited the journalist in the “Lefortovo” pre-trial detention center, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia refused the planned meeting of American diplomats with the arrested person. The department explained its decision in response to the failure to issue American visas to Russian journalists to travel to New York and cover the work of the UN Security Council there.
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