Lawyers Prepare To Meet With Whelan For 1st Time In Prison On Wednesday

The defense team of US citizen and ex-marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage in Russia, will visit him at a penal colony in Russia's Mordovia region for the first time on June 9, the convict's lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told Sputnik on Monday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th June, 2021) The defense team of US citizen and ex-marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for espionage in Russia, will visit him at a penal colony in Russia's Mordovia region for the first time on June 9, the convict's lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, told Sputnik on Monday.

"Together with Olga Karlova [Whelan's second lawyer], we are leaving tomorrow on the train to visit him, that is, on Wednesday, we will see him," Zherebenkov said.

Whelan, who is also a citizen of Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, was arrested in Russia in December 2018.

A Moscow court sentenced him to a 16-year prison term for espionage last June. Whelan, however, 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.

Last week, his brother, David Whelan, told Sputnik that Paul had written to Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking pardon twice. Commenting on the letters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there was a special procedure for this.