A former U. S. Marine has been freed Thursday from a Russian criminal, ending a nearly six-year detention for espionage in the country on charges the United States government said were false. Paul Whelan was running in Moscow as the director of corporate security for a supplier of auto parts when the Russian government arrested him in 2018 on espionage charges. Two years later, a Russian court sentenced Whelan to 16 years of hard labor.
The United States government has long denied that Whelan is a spy.
Turkish intelligence told local media that the National Intelligence Organization, known as MIT, helped broker the exchange, which took place on Thursday at Esenboğa airport in the Turkish capital, AnkaraArray.
Whelan’s release is part of a criminal swap between the United States, Russia and Germany that may be the largest since the Cold War, involving the transfer of 24 criminals from that third country. According to Turkish media, two minors could also be involved in the transfer. Whelan, in particular, was not released in the last criminal swap between the United States and Russia in 2022, in which WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed from a Russian criminal over the United States release of convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The other two freed Americans are journalists. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March 2023 on espionage charges that the newspaper and his family have denied. Alsou Kurmasheva is a Russian-American radio journalist who has citizenship in both countries and lives in Prague, according to an online biography on Radio Free Europe’s website. She was arrested in June 2023 and convicted two weeks ago of “spreading false information” about the Russian military.
Whelan served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1994 to 2008 as administrative secretary and chief administrative officer, according to his service record, which he provided to Task & Purpose through the Corps. He completed two deployments to Iraq, from February to August 2004 and from February to December 2006.
But Whelan was eventually demoted from sergeant to staff and was released for misconduct after he was found guilty in a special court-martial on January 14, 2008, of attempted theft, dereliction of duty, and misuse of the fake official matrix. someone else’s social information. Security number and bad checks, according to army records.
Specifically, Whelan was convicted of attempting to obtain a $10,000 loan while deployed to Iraq in 2006, bouncing around $6,000 in checks and the other person’s Social Security number to log into an educational formula to grade his own exams, the Washington Post reported.
Matt White is Editor-in-Chief of Task
Matt White is editor of Task
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