Jailed US Citizen Whelan May Be Exchanged For Russian Programmer - Lawyer

US citizen and ex-marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage in Russia, can be exchanged for a Russian IT specialist jailed in the US, Whelan's lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told Sputnik on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th February, 2021) US citizen and ex-marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage in Russia, can be exchanged for a Russian IT specialist jailed in the US, Whelan's lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"Intelligence services are negotiating Paul Whelan's exchange, other Names are now being heard, these are not [pilot Konstantin] Yaroshenko and [businessman Viktor] Bout, but one of the programmers," Zherebenkov said.

The lawyer added that the US special services could launch such talks only� if they received instruction from the US president.

"I suppose there was some instruction from [US President Joe] Biden," he said.

The defense team has repeatedly reported on exchange talks, most recently in mid-December, before Biden took office.

Back then, Zherebenkov said Moscow and Washington were negotiating potential exchange of Whelan for Yaroshenko and Bout, who are serving sentences in the US. However, Russia's foreign ministry has so far refuted any reports about negotiations on exchanging Whelan.

Whelan � who is also a citizen of Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom � was arrested in Russia in December 2018. A court in Moscow sentenced him to 16 years in prison for espionage in June. Whelan has denied the charges and insisted that he came to Russia for a friend's wedding. Court papers have revealed that he has frequented Russia since 2007.