Brother American detained in Russia, told about the life of Paul Whelan

David Whelan, the twin brother of the detainee in Moscow on suspicion of spying Paul Whelan, said that his brother has many friends in Russia, although he says he speaks Russian poorly.

He does not believe that his brother could break the law, writes with the BBC.

On December 31, the FSB reported that US citizen Paul Whelan was detained on December 28 “during an espionage action.” A case has been opened against him under Article 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (espionage).

On January 3, former US Marine Whelan was visited in the detention facility by US Ambassador to Russia John Huntsman.

David Whelan told him that he knew about the arrest of his brother.

“We found out about the arrest on Monday (December 31) morning, we knew for several days that something was wrong, he had not been in touch since the 28th, since Friday, and we spent the weekend not knowing what happened to him. I'm a librarian, I came to work on Monday morning, went on Google and started searching for all those scary things you look for when someone goes missing. And he quickly came across news reports that he was being detained on charges of allegedly committing an act of espionage,” Whelan said.

According to him, after that he immediately contacted the family.

“We learned that Russian authorities told the State Department that they had Paul. And we started doing what I think they do when your relative is detained by a foreign government - we started contacting congressmen, senators, the government and the embassy to find out when we would get access to him or when they would get access. Paul has criminal charges of espionage in his case, and we need to help him find a criminal lawyer when the trial begins. All these things that suddenly had to be done. And tell the media about all this, report that Paul was detained in Russia. And we really want him to just come home,” said the American’s brother.

The man also said that Paul Whelan has experience in law enforcement and service in the marines.

“Paul has a background in law enforcement, having served in the Marines, served several tours in Iraq, and then spent the last 5-10 years working in corporate security, which involved travel from the company he worked for to their facilities, production, or in the case of Kelly Services, travel for contract work. He was simply studying whether there were holes, whether there were risks to the company’s property, places from which something could be stolen,” said David.

Whelan enlisted in the Marines in 1994, rose to the rank of staff sergeant, and deployed to Iraq in 2004 and 2006. In 2008, he was dismissed from the armed forces for bad behavior - he was accused of theft several times.

Then Whelan worked at the consulting company Kelly Services, which is engaged in recruitment.

Until recently, Whelan was the security director of the American company BorgWarner, which supplies spare parts for cars. The company reported that they knew about the detention of Whelan, cooperated with the American authorities, and offered to send further requests to the State Department.

“He is a very kind and noble person, he is a wonderful brother. And I think that’s why he was in Moscow in the first place. A former Marine asked him to help, a friend was getting married in Moscow, and Paul had been to Russia many times, he had traveled extensively for his company as a corporate security specialist, and he had been traveling for pleasure since we were teenagers. And so his friend asked: “Since you were in Russia, could you help us, our family is going to Russia, but has never been there.” Just help with getting around, showing the sights and all that.

And Paul agreed, he left on the 22nd to attend the wedding party and the wedding itself on the 28th. On the morning of the 28th he was in the Kremlin in the Armory Chamber, he was on a ticketed excursion, he helped the group, explained what he saw himself when he was there on an excursion, and in the evening he did not show up at the wedding. And at that moment the groom also realized that there was a problem,” suggested David Whelan.

He added that his brother has a page in the Russian social network VKontakte.

“For years he has been making friends on social networks, I think first in American ones, and now he also has a page in “VK". He has contacts in Russia and other countries, and when he goes there, he meets with his friends, seems to have a good time, he often visits the sights, he has been to the Kremlin twice. I don't think Russia was a particular place that he liked, I think he just loved going there again to meet the people he had met.

An American military man with a VKontakte page,” said the detainee’s brother.

Paul Whelan was an active user of the Russian social network; he had 64 friends on VKontakte. On social networks, Whelan also wrote in Russian. However, according to his brother, he did not speak Russian.

“As far as I know, he did not speak Russian. He never spoke Russian to me. We have a family member who speaks Russian professionally, and he and Paul didn’t speak Russian, so I think he knew how to get around Russia, how to order food and all that, but this is a tourist level of knowledge of the language,” - David noted.

Recall 28 December in Moscow, the FSB detained citizen United States Paul Whelan on suspicion of espionage. At the same time, Russia refused to explain what had become the basis for the arrest and nomination of such charges.

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