Why Didn't Biden Swap Paul Whelan Convicted for Espionage in Russia?
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Earlier this week, Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who spent 15 years in a US prison, was swapped for US WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner, who was arrested in Russia earlier this year. The deal did not involve Paul Whelan, presently serving a 16-year prison term in Russia for espionage.
"I am very happy that President Putin and President Biden decided to trade Griner for Bout and that she will now be home in order to spend Christmas with her family and friends. She made a very silly mistake and paid a high price for it," Francis A. Boyle, professor of international law, told Sputnik.
Bout was arrested in 2008 in Thailand on terrorism charges accused by the US of smuggling weapons. In 2009 and 2010 the courts of Thailand rejected the US request for Bout's extradition due to insufficient evidence of his guilt presented by Washington, defining the nature of the US extradition request as political persecution. However, in August 2010, the Court of Appeal of Thailand ruled in favor of Bout's extradition.
At the time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov qualified the move as "an example of blatant judicial injustice," stressing that the decision was the result of "unprecedented political pressure on the judiciary and the government of Thailand." On April 5, 2012, the Russian citizen was sentenced to 25 years in US prison. Bout pleaded not guilty. Still, he was smeared by both the US mainstream press and film-makers being depicted as "the merchant of death" and a brutal "warlord."
8 December 2022, 13:16 GMT
Meanwhile, the US press is bemoaning the fact that this week's swap deal wasn’t all that US officials had wanted. Last July, US Secretary of State Anony Blinken lifted the veil on his secret talks with Moscow and announced that the Biden administration had made a "substantial proposal" to Russia to release Russian citizen Viktor Bout in order to bring back home two US nationals: Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.
On Thursday, detained American Paul Whelan expressed his frustration that the US administration had not done enough to secure his release in an exclusive CNN interview. President Joe Biden has been subjected to criticism by the US conservatives for his decision to exchange Bout for a basketball player instead of the ex-marine. The US liberals are much softer on the US president: they say that he did the right choice, citing the fact that Griner is an openly lesbian African American woman.
"I think Biden thought he'd get some political points if he had her released before Christmas. And that's why they went for her and not for him. It comes down to politics, really," remarked Dan Kovalik, adjunct professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of "No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using 'Humanitarian' Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests."
However, an unnamed US senior official told the media that the Biden administration did not have a choice of which American to bring home. Instead, it was a choice between releasing Griner or no one, the official claimed
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on December 9, that the swap was initiated by the Americans, that the negotiations were held in a normal mode and that they will be continued.
"We do not use any ultimatums, but we (…) will continue to firmly defend our position," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told journalists on Friday, when asked whether the "one-for-one" Griner-Bout swap was the Russian primary condition.
9 December 2022, 15:07 GMT
Who is Paul Whelan?
Apparently, the problem is that Whelan is accused of espionage which seems to be far more serious than Griner's drug smuggling.
"As for Whelan, it does appear from what I have seen in the public record that he is a spook," said Boyle. "I am certain that negotiations will continue for his release. The Biden administration will have to offer an equivalent high value prisoner in order to obtain his release. Hopefully this can be accomplished in the immediate future."
The Paul Whelan case is very difficult, according to Daniel Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War."
"It (…) appears that the Russian government regards his case as more serious than Grinder's case because they believe he was engaged in espionage," Lazare told Sputnik. "Obviously [this is] a much more serious offense. A lot depends on the future course of US-Russian relations. I presume if they were to improve that the chances of Whelan's release would greatly increase. But unfortunately, I see no prospect of that occurring. So it's difficult to make predictions."
US Marine Corps veteran Whelan is a Canadian national who also has US, British, and Irish citizenship. On December 28, 2018, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested him at his room in the Metropol hotel in Moscow after the ex-military serviceman received a flash drive containing a list of employees for a secret Russian agency. For his part, Whelan insisted that he was in Russia only to attend a friend’s wedding. He traveled to Russia several times, apparently, from 2006.
A former FSB official told Rossiya Segodnya that judging from the circumstances of Whelan's arrest, the Russian counterintelligence agents had thwarted a major operation by US intelligence services. Whelan was convicted on June 15, 2020, and received a 16-year prison sentence.
While the British mainstream press attempted to depict Whelan as "a Mr. Bean on holiday," he does not appear to be a simpleton.
From 1988 through 2000, Whelan worked as a police officer on the Chelsea, Michigan, force and as a deputy in the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office. It was also reported that Whelan began his military service as a US Marine reservist in 1990 (or 1994) to 2001.
Between 2003 and 2008, he served in Iraq being part of Operation Iraqi Freedom as a staff sergeant with Marine Air Control Group 38. Either in 2006 or 2007, Whelan spent his two vacation weeks in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia, according to the US press.
At the time of arrest, Whelan worked as director of global security and investigations for BorgWarner, a large automotive components manufacturer with more than 60 offices and manufacturing facilities located in 18 countries. Prior to being hired by BorgWarner, the Canadian-born national worked in global security operations for the office staffing firm Kelly Services. He managed and conducted investigations concerning the company's interests globally.
According to the US media, Whelan's position at Kelly Services put him in frequent contact with various US federal agencies, including DEA and FBI in the US and Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) at the foreign embassies, to name but a few.
At the same time, however, the US press tries to cast a shadow on Whelan's resume. US journalists claimed that the ex-Marine was "perhaps the last person" that the US government would use to collect intelligence.
They said that he did not have diplomatic immunity, something a CIA agent typically has when dispatched to Russia, according to them. Furthermore, they referred to the fact that in January 2008, Whelan was convicted in a special court-martial for attempted larceny, three specifications of dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, and other wrongdoings. While the reported misdeeds do not make Whelan look like James Bond, they don't prove his innocence, either.
Ryan Fogle
© Photo : Russian Federal Security Service
Whelan is Not the First and, Perhaps, Not the Last One
It's not the first time that a US citizen suspected of espionage has been caught in Moscow. On the night of May 13-14, 2013, FSB agents arrested a career CIA officer Ryan Christopher Fogle, who worked as the third secretary of the political section at the US Embassy in Moscow. Fogle was accused of trying to recruit a Russian officer to work as a US agent. The CIA agent was ordered to leave by the Russian authorities and was declared persona non grata.
A far more interesting case happened on July 15, 1977, when US intelligence officer Martha Peterson, who worked in the US Embassy in Moscow, was caught red-handed while laying a secret container on the Krasnoluzhsky Bridge in Moscow. The aforementioned container was intended for Soviet diplomat Alexander Ogorodnik, recruited by the CIA, and arrested on June 21, 1977 by the Soviet intelligence service KGB.
While it is usual that spooks and their backers deny being involved in espionage, Martha went public on her CIA background and secret mission in Moscow: in 2012 she published her memoir "The Widow Spy: My CIA Journey from the Jungles of Laos to Prison in Moscow." In the book, Peterson described the Cold War spy operation in Moscow and her arrest and detention in Lubyanka Prison.
The Peterson case emerged as a huge international scandal, especially because the CIA intelligence officer smuggled poison into the USSR which was used to kill at least one Soviet citizen. Eventually, Peterson was expelled from the USSR and declared persona non grata. The story was used by Soviet filmmakers to make a series titled "TASS is Authorized to Declare" (1984).
