RUSSIA’S deputy foreign minister has downplayed suggestions that an American man with British citizenship being held in Moscow on suspicion of spying could be exchanged for a Russian arrested in the US.
Paul Whelan, who also holds Canadian and Irish citizenship, was detained in late December.
His arrest has led to speculation that Russia could be using him as a pawn to exchange for Maria Butina, the Russian who pleaded guilty last month to acting as a foreign agent in the United States.
But deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said discussing the issue would be premature because Whelan has not been formally charged, according to Russian news agencies.
Some Russian news reports had cited unnamed sources as saying Whelan had been indicted on charges that could bring 20 years in prison if convicted.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had warned Russia not to use UK citizens as pawns in “diplomatic chess games” after the arrest of the former US marine.
Hunt said Whelan, a 48-year-old who lives in Michigan but is a dual British national through his parents, was being given “every support that we can”.
Speaking during a formal visit to Singapore, Hunt told Sky News that “individuals should not be used as pawns of diplomatic leverage”.
“Because it is desperately worrying, not just for the individual but their families, and we are extremely worried about him and his family as we hear this news.”
Whelan, 48, was in Moscow to help plan the wedding of another former marine because he had been to Russia several times before, his twin brother David said.
The US Embassy in Moscow advised the British Embassy in Moscow on Thursday that a US citizen detained by the Russian authorities on December 28 also held British citizenship, and therefore requested consular assistance from the UK.
A Foreign Office spokesman in London said: “Our staff have requested consular access to a British man detained in Russia after receiving a request for assistance from him.”
Whelan currently director of global security for Michigan-based automotive components supplier BorgWarner, and according to his brother, has been visiting Russia for pleasure for many years.
A former marine, he served in Iraq for several months between 2004 and 2006.
He was convicted in a 2008 court martial on charges related to larceny and received a bad-conduct discharge. However, details of the charges were not given.
The Whelan family did not comment on the court martial proceedings, but had earlier said “his innocence is undoubted” on the Russian allegations.
“I can’t imagine how someone with a law enforcement background who is also a former US marine, and who is now working in corporate security and is also aware of the risks of travel, would have broken any law let alone the law related to espionage,” David Whelan said.
The US and Russia have been spying on each other for decades, but it isn’t often that US citizens are arrested for espionage on Russian
territory.
The two countries have expelled each other’s diplomats on occasion, notably last year following a nerve agent attack in the UK, which was quickly blamed on Russia.
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