Surprise US prisoner swap with Russia for Trevor Reed tough for Paul Whelan's family
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One former U.S. Marine being held in a Russian prison was returned to America on Wednesday while another remains in a labor camp serving out a 16-year sentence on claims he is a spy.
The surprise exchange of former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed for convicted Russian drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko brought cheers from the family of Paul Whelan, the Michigan businessman who was arrested in December 2018 in Moscow and charged with espionage.
But it also brought questions about when it will be Whelan's turn to come home.
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"Trevor is free. Paul remains a hostage," said Whelan's twin brother, David Whelan, in a statement issued Wednesday morning. "You can imagine that today is one of varied emotions in our family."
Reed, a former Marine from Texas, was arrested in summer 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted an officer following a night of heavy drinking. Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison, though his family has maintained his innocence and the U.S. government has described him as unjustly detained.
He was swapped for Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the U.S.
"The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly," President Joe Biden said in a statement Wednesday, pledging to continue to negotiate the release of Whelan and other Americans detained abroad.
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David Whelan said he's concerned about those "difficult decisions," and wonders just how steep the concessions will have to be for the U.S. government to secure his brother's freedom.
"How difficult are the decisions he faces to release Paul?" David Whelan asked. "And if not now, when one deal has been struck with Russia, then when? How much harder will a second agreement be? Today is a day of questions in our family.
"Paul has already spent 3¼ years as a Russian hostage. Is President Biden's failure to bring Paul home an admission that some cases are too hard to solve? Is the administration's piecemeal approach picking low-hanging fruit? And how does a family know that their loved one's case is too difficult, a hostage too far out of reach?"
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Like Reed, Paul Whelan also is a former Marine. He lived in Novi and worked in global security for auto-parts supplier BorgWarner when he was arrested Dec. 28, 2018, in his room at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow.
Russian authorities allege they caught him with classified information and charged him with espionage.
Whelan, his family and U.S. officials say the charges were false, and that he was wrongly convicted in a closed-door trial in June 2020.
"If nothing else, on this day when my twin brother continues to suffer a gross injustice in Russia and another American is freed from injustice, I am confident President Biden cares and his team is making an effort," David Whelan said. "Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for Paul.
"Perhaps someday it will be. Who gets saved is the president's choice. President Trump wasn't able to make those difficult decisions. It may be President Biden is unwilling to make them either. We hope we don't have to pin our hopes on another American president before someone will do the right thing for Paul."
In addition to Whelan, Russia also has WNBA star Brittney Griner in custody. Griner was detained in February after authorities said she tried to enter the country with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. If she's convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trevor Reed prisoner swap with Russia tough for Paul Whelan family
