The lawyer for former US Marine Paul Whelan says she no longer knows where he is being held, four years after he was sentenced on espionage charges in Russia.
His lawyer, Olga Karlova, told reporters this week that she had sent a request to the penal colony where he is serving his sentence to find out where he is.
Several Russian dissidents and people convicted for their opposition to Moscow’s war in Ukraine have disappeared from Russian prisons in recent days, in what human 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 and says 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 believed to have been among the prisoners transferred.
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 say the prisoner transfer is seen as an indication that an exchange is imminent.
Whelan holds Irish, British and Canadian citizenship.
“I have received requests from journalists from various international agencies asking me to clarify whether I know Paul’s whereabouts, as there are rumours of a possible exchange,” his lawyer told Interfax, the Russian news agency.
‘I have sent a request to the colony (penitentiary) administration, but I am not receiving a response.’
He is the only non-Russian citizen to have been transferred from penal colonies.
The others are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, Memorial director Oleg Orlov, Navalny allies Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and anti-war activist Sasha Skochilenko.
Officials never provided details about the December 2023 swap attempt. When Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about Gershkovich’s release, he mentioned a man jailed by a U.S. ally for “liquidating a bandit” who had allegedly killed Russian soldiers in Chechnya.
This appeared to refer to Vadim Krasikov, who in 2021 served a life sentence in Germany for the murder of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a Georgian citizen of Chechen descent.
WNBA legend Brittney Griner said in an interview in April that she wished Paul Whelan would accompany her on the flight back to the U.S.
During a News Nation Interview In May, alongside Natasha Zouves, Whelan’s brother David Whelan described the grim state his brother now finds himself in five years after his captivity.
“It is disintegrating and will continue to do so,” David said.
“His cognitive mental health is deteriorating. We’re starting to pick up on it on phone calls. He’s got physical issues. He’s got a broken tooth that can’t be fixed.”
In 2023, Whelan said he felt “abandoned” by the Biden administration as he had been left out of prison exchanges.
In April, WNBA star Brittney Griner told Robin Roberts on ABC’s 20/20 that she thought Paul Whelan would be on the same plane as her to take them home to the U.S.
“When I walked in and didn’t see him, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I got here first. Maybe he’s next. Maybe they’ll bring him later,'” he said.
“And when they closed the door I thought, ‘Are they really not going to let this man come home right now?'”
Griner was exchanged for Viktor Bout, an arms dealer nicknamed “the Merchant of Death.”
She says the US government should have pushed harder to try to bring her and Whelan back.
“If it had been up to me in that business, I would have gone and found Paul and brought him home,” Griner says.
