Added on May 6, 2019  Marsha Chartrand

Whelan family still waits for their son to return home

On New Years Day, Manchester residents Rosemary and Ed Whelan received news that turned their lives upside down. That was the day they learned that their youngest son Paul, had been arrested on December 28, while in Moscow attending a friend’s wedding.

It started off very innocuously. Paul, a seasoned traveler who speaks a small amount of Russian, was invited as a friend and former colleague of the couple, but also as someone who could help others, especially the wedding party, find their way in a strange city, which he had been doing.

However, when he did not appear at the wedding, according to news reports, the newlyweds filed a missing-person report. Russian authorities say Whelan had accepted a flash drive containing classified information, and accused him of being a spy. In the four-plus months since that time, no actual evidence has been brought forward to support the Russian allegations, Whelan remains detained in Lefortovo Prison, and very little information is being released by Russian authorities.

“How do you think it would feel to have a loved one kidnapped and be unable to talk to them?” asks David Whelan, Paul’s twin, who currently lives in Canada. “That’s our family’s situation. My parents know in a general way where Paul is–Lefortovo prison–but have had no direct communication with him since December 28. Our family had not received any letters from Paul–although he says he’s written over 100–until the week of April 21. Then my parents received two large caches of letters, 13 mailed one day in March, and 26 mailed in April.” 

Obviously, it was a huge relief for Rosemary and Ed Whelan to “hear” their son’s voice through his own handwriting. The letters document the period from when he was allowed paper–January 18 (three weeks after his arrest)–to early February. 

“None of the rest of us have received any letters,” David says. “No-one has spoken to him by phone, because the Russian police (FSB) are using phone access as part of their strategy to coerce a false confession. Our only communication are notes we pass through his lawyers (appointed by the FSB) and from consular visits. But even the US Ambassador to Moscow, Jon Huntsman, is not able to communicate fully with Paul.”

The Whelan family has split the work of trying to get Paul home, while protecting their parents from the media circus, into (somewhat) manageable tasks. David is handling the media interactions. His sister Elizabeth, in Massachusetts, is balancing the US government lobbying with her professional work as a portrait artist. She is going to Capitol Hill to lobby the Michigan delegation, including Rep. Haley Stevens of the 11th Congressional District, and working with advisors to contact people in the U.S. State Department. Brother, Andrew, in North Carolina, is handling interactions with the Canadian, Irish, UK, and US embassies as they make consular visits to Paul–including making sure he has funds in prison to buy toiletries.

Although Rosemary and Ed received a total of 39 letters from Paul in April, they are keeping the contents of those letters private, so that Paul has the freedom to express himself fully, David says.

“It’s just one example of how this impacts the family,” he adds. “My parents are both around 80 and you can imagine the impact it has on them, having their youngest (by 5 minutes!) son held prisoner in this way. It’s led to sleepless nights, and a rollercoaster of hopefulness and helplessness that all of us are experiencing. 

“Fundamentally, until you are one of the American families in this position, you do not realize how little the government does to help you. We are not the only family with a loved one who is an American citizen being held by a foreign government: Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and on. You hope that the Embassy consular officials can visit and communicate with your son or daughter, but there’s little they can do beyond that.”

David added that Paul’s concerns about his medical conditions and health are subject to the FSB’s willingness for him to see a doctor. He will be penalized for not paying his US taxes–because he has not been allowed to sign a Power of Attorney by the FSB; yet he also hasn’t been declared “wrongfully detained” by the State Department.

“This places the burden of Paul’s life–paying his bills, monitoring his apartment, handling his taxes and insurance–on his family,” David continues. “There’s no question that Paul has the worst of it, locked in a prison cell in a country where he doesn’t speak the language. He can’t understand the legal proceedings against him unless they’re translated, and isn’t given the documents that explain the charges against him because they’re secret.”

The entire Whelan family is frustrated and saddened by the circumstances surrounding Paul’s incarceration and the slowness with which the wheels of justice are turning.

“If Paul has to continue in the legal system that he has called a ‘kangaroo court’ he’ll be there for a year or more and will be convicted. Russia has a 100% conviction rate for foreigners charged with espionage. We definitely feel the pressure to get him home as soon as possible.”

How can Manchester residents help out with their efforts? “I’m afraid there is not much that an individual can do,” David admits. “We are grateful to the Manchester folk who have contributed to GoFundMe and have spoken up [on Twitter].” He adds that there are no words to express how much it means to them that people check in on their parents, whose well-being is a concern that Paul has expressed in his letters.

“It’s hard to know if we’ve made progress,” says David. “We know that the State Department is waiting for the Russian authorities to share evidence they claim to have about Paul’s arrest. We have seen an increasing frustration on the part of the US Embassy in Moscow and Ambassador Huntsman about the Russian’s failure to show any evidence. We will continue to work and hope, perhaps that Secretary of State Pompeo is able to convince the Russian leaders that holding Paul is wrong. 

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll know that we’re making progress until we know that Paul is on a plane home from Russia.”

The Manchester community–and the Whelan family–can only hope that that time comes very soon.