Paul Whelan, a former US Marine arrested in Russia on espionage charges, was visiting Moscow over the holidays to attend a wedding when he suddenly disappeared, his brother said on Tuesday.
Whelan, 48, who is head of global security for a Michigan-based auto parts supplier, was arrested on Friday.
In announcing the arrest three days later, the Russian Federal Security Service said that he was caught “during an espionage operation,” but gave no details.
“We are deeply concerned for his safety and well-being,” his family said in a statement that his brother, David Whelan, posted on Twitter.
“His innocence is undoubted and we trust that his rights will be respected,” it said.
The Russian spying charges carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
David Whelan said in an interview that his brother had been to Russia several times previously, so when a fellow former Marine was planning a wedding in Moscow with a Russian woman, he was asked to come along to help out.
The morning of his arrest, he had taken a group of wedding guests on a tour of the Kremlin museums, his brother said, adding that the last time that anyone heard from him was at about 5pm and then he failed to show up that evening for the wedding.
“It was extraordinarily out of character,” he said.
The family feared he had been mugged or was in a car accident, David Whelan said, and it was when searching the Internet on Monday that he learned of the arrest.
“I was looking for any stories about dead Americans in Moscow, so in a way, it was better than finding out that he had died,” he said.
The US Department of State on Monday said it had received formal notification from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the arrest and was pushing for consular access.
The family was told by the US embassy in Moscow that they have not been able to speak to Paul Whelan, David Whelan said, adding that he had no idea why his brother was targeted by Russia.
Paul Whelan had traveled to Russia in the past for work and to visit friends that he had met on social networks, his brother added.
The arrest comes as US-Russian ties are severely strained, in part over Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
A Russian gun-rights activist, Maria Butina, is in US custody after admitting that she acted as a secret agent for the Kremlin in trying to infiltrate conservative US political groups as then-US presidential candidate Donald Trump was campaigning.
She pleaded guilty last month to a conspiracy charge as part of a deal with federal prosecutors.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the case is fabricated and that Butina entered the guilty plea because of the threat of a long prison sentence.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung (袁國勇) has done battle with some of the world’s worst threats, including the SARS virus he helped isolate and identify, and he has a warning. Another pandemic is inevitable and could exact damage far worse than COVID-19 pandemic, said the soft-spoken scientist sometimes thought of as Hong Kong’s answer to former US National Institutes of Health director Anthony Fauci. “Both the public and [world] leaders must admit that another pandemic will come, and probably sooner than you anticipate,” he said at the city’s Queen Mary Hospital, where he works and teaches. “Why I make such a horrifying prediction
A high-ranking North Korean diplomat stationed in Cuba defected to South Korea in November last year — just months before Seoul and Havana established diplomatic ties, the South Korean National Intelligence Service said yesterday. North Korean diplomat Ri Il-kyu had been responsible for political affairs at Pyongyang’s embassy in Cuba since 2019, tasked specifically “with obstructing the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Cuba,” South Korea’s Chosun Daily reported. Ri defected to South Korea with his wife and children in early November, making him the highest-ranking North Korean diplomat known to have defected since then-North Korean deputy ambassador to the
INDICTED: US prosecutors said Sue Mi Terry accepted fancy handbags, luxury dinners and thousands of dollars in payments from South Korean intelligence A former CIA employee and senior official at the US National Security Council has been charged with allegedly serving as a secret agent for the South Korean National Intelligence Service, the US Department of Justice said. Sue Mi Terry accepted luxury goods, including fancy handbags, and expensive dinners at sushi restaurants in exchange for advocating South Korean government positions during media appearances, sharing nonpublic information with intelligence officers and facilitating access for South Korean officials to US government officials, an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan, New York, says. She also admitted to the FBI that she served as a source