• Espionage: a marine caught in Russia by a 'poisoned' album

Moscow and Washington continue to play spies, and this time what Moscow believes to be a pawn of the US intelligence services has fallen. Paul Whelan is a former Marine who was detained in Moscow in 2018. Today he has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage. He claims that he was in Russia for tourism when he received from a friend a 'pen drive' where supposedly there were only photos. But the device contained a " list of Russian secret service workers ". The US denounces that the trial was neither "fair" nor "transparent" and warned through a note from its embassy that this ruling "will harm relations."

"It has been the Russian legal system that has been found guilty of injustice," the family has denounced in a statement. After a closed-door trial, because the materials in the case contained confidential information, the court has issued a judgment that will further aggravate the relationship between Moscow and Washington. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked Russia for Whelan's immediate release.

The family remains hopeful that Whelan will benefit from an exchange for arrested Russian citizens in the United States. The Russian authorities have ruled out the eventual exchange of the American while the process against him lasted.

Last month the Russian Prosecutor's Office requested an 18-year prison sentence for Whelan, more than the family expected. The crime of espionage is punished in Russia with between 10 and 20 years in prison. Whelan has denied all the allegations and has called his case "political kidnapping" . A week ago, her brother claimed in an interview with EL MUNDO that Whelan traveled to Moscow to attend a wedding. The bride and groom have not been able to testify in favor of Paul Whelan, because "they both already live in the United States, he is a Marine and she is Russian, they were not going to take a plane to testify, especially with the current coronavirus pandemic."

During these months Whelan (50 years old and whose last job was head of security in a US company) has been the most famous inmate of the Lefortovo prison. He was arrested at the downtown Metropol hotel on December 28, 2018. He had entered Russia with a passport from the United States, his country of residence, although he also holds the nationalities of the United Kingdom, Canada (where he was born) and Ireland. His knowledge of Russian, depending on his environment, comes down to a handful of words, but that 2018 trip was not the first of his life.

On May 25, Whelan insisted on his innocence and asked the judges to issue an acquittal. His lawyer reported that the evidence contains "indications of incitement to crime" by another person. And it criticized that the witnesses of the accusation were in their majority agents of the Russian secret services. The family's thesis is that the 'friend' who gave Whelan the 'pen drive' was an agent of the FSB (heirloom security service of the KGB) who set him up to get rid of a debt.

The US Embassy in Russia has criticized Moscow for the treatment given to Whelan, who has suffered from various health problems. He was recently admitted and operated on urgently for a hernia after the US accused Russian authorities of endangering his life by denying him medical care from outside the prison. "No evidence was presented and the court did not give defense witnesses the option to testify at a distance or postpone their intervention due to quarantine," the US diplomatic delegation said on Twitter. "Our family will continue to fight for Paul's release," the family said in its statement.

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