Washington D.C. – WDET, August 08, 2024
Paul Whelan, who had been detained for more than five years, was part of a multi-national prisoner exchange with Russia involving roughly two dozen people last week.
A Michigan family is celebrating after one of their own was released from a Russian prison last week, following more than five years of detainment.
Novi native Paul Whelan was arrested in Russia in 2018.
He had been serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage, charges both he and the U.S. government say are bogus.
Whelan was part of a multi-national prisoner exchange with Russia involving roughly two dozen people.
He was the first person to disembark from the plane that brought the detainees back to the U.S., where Whelan was greeted in-person by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, told WDET in a phone interview that their family can finally exhale again.
David Whelan: We’re obviously overjoyed that he is home. There was messaging from the U.S. government sort of letting us know that something might happen, that it could be positive news. But it also could be news that we wouldn’t be happy about. So, I think up until I read the White House statement after Paul had gotten on a plane, that the detainees were on their way home, I didn’t really believe that it had happened.
Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: And you had no idea up until that point that this was going to go through?
DW: Right. I think we were starting to sense something in the last few days. This didn’t come from the U.S. government. I’ve been watching Russian media for over five years. And you can see things starting to happen. We saw that it was becoming a very large, complicated sort of an activity or event. And I think the more complexity you have, the more likelihood that there is something that could fall apart or that someone might get cold feet, that something doesn’t work the way you expect. Particularly since Paul had not come home twice already, he had been left behind when Trevor Reed came home and he was left behind when Brittney Griner came home. And that’s not to suggest that he could have come home. I’m just saying that he didn’t come home. So I think we were all a little bit cautious about getting our hopes up too high that he would come home the third time.
