MOSCOW (AP) — Russian officials say the American former Marine who is being held in Moscow on spying charges also holds British citizenship, and London has requested consular access to him.
Paul Whelan, the global security director for a U.S. company, was arrested a week ago in Moscow. At the time, he was identified only as an American.
Britain’s Press Association said Whelan’s U.K. citizenship was reported by the U.S. embassy to British officials on Thursday. That was a day after U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, Jr. met with Whelan at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow.
“He has British citizenship. The British side has sent a request for a consular visit. Work on it is in progress,” the Russian state news agency Tass cited Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.
Relations between Moscow and London are at a low point in the wake of Britain’s allegations that Russian military intelligence agents were behind the nerve-agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury in March.
Russia has angrily denied involvement in the poisonings.
The two Russian suspects identified by British authorities, who were spotted on security cameras in Salisbury on the day that former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were poisoned, claim they were businessmen on a short holiday to see the city’s famed cathedral.
Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats in the case, and Russia sent home the same number. Many British allies made similar expulsions, with more than 150 Russian diplomats kicked out overall.
Whelan’s arrest came two weeks after Russian gun-rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty in the United States to conspiring to act as a foreign agent by trying to infiltrate conservative circles and the National Rifle Association to influence U.S. politics.
Butina has become a cause celebre for Russia — her face is being used as the profile picture on the Foreign Ministry’s Facebook page — and the timing of Whelan’s arrest has led to suggestions that he is being seen as a potential swap for her.
A top member of Russia’s parliament, foreign affairs committee deputy head Dmitry Novikov, on Friday appeared to suggest that was a possibility once the investigation into Whelan was completed.
“I think that we have to give our special services the opportunity to finalize things with the detainees. Then we will see,” he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Whelan, 48, a former staff sergeant with the Marines in Iraq, has visited Russia since at least 2007. He was there again for a friend’s wedding when he was detained. He is the global security director for the Auburn Hills, Michigan-based BorgWarner, an auto parts supplier.
OK, that’s weird. Don’t you have to denounce all citizenship from other countries to serve in our Armed Forces as he had done before he was dishonorably discharged? I don’t know. I’m just asking.
Nevermind: Looked it up. Apparently not. Also, you don’t have to be a citizen at all and can have a green card and serve. I did know that.
Dude is a Russian spy.
hmmm, although double nationalities are not rare, I had not seen anything in his background that would have suggested British nationalities. Now, the guy is no angel, he was kicked out of the military for larceny. Certainly not spy material.
Not sure about that, but all points that he is some kind of crook.
The twitter machine told me last night he had a Canadian passport and an Irish Passport He was involved in all manner of nefarious deeds that got him booted from the Marines , the worst of which was trying to get medals for things he never did
One seriously shifty grifter douchebag
Nice try Russia , You can keep him, while we put the screws to Bettina and Wayne LaPirerre