WASHINGTON: A US corporate security executive and former Marine who has been jailed in Moscow on spying charges has spent more than a decade cultivating friends and contacts in Russia, both virtual and real.
Paul Whelan sought out friends throughout the country, most often through a social networking site that is similar to Facebook and popular largely in Russia. Several told The Associated Press that the American never seemed sinister, merely someone who was interested in Russia and wanted to be pen pals.
“I know him as a friendly, polite, educated, and easygoing guy,” said one of his contacts, who, like the other Russians interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because of Whelan’s legal troubles.
Whelan was arrested Dec. 28 while on a two-week visit to the country and has been charged with espionage. The Russian government has so far given no details about the allegations against him, but a close look at his social media history suggests why he might have come to the attention of the Russian security services, regardless of his motives.
He has collected dozens of contacts on the social media site, nearly all of them men, many of whom have at least some connection to the military.
His family back home says he was nothing more than a tourist. In a Washington Post op-ed published Friday, his twin brother, David, urged the US government to pressure Russia to release him.
“Paul is a kind and considerate brother, son and uncle, and a generous and loyal friend,” he wrote. “He travels as often as he can, both for work and pleasure. He is many things to many people, but he is not a spy.”
Whelan, 48, could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of spying. He is also a citizen of Britain, Canada and Ireland, which brings international pressure on Russia from several fronts. He was born in Canada to British parents, but grew up in Michigan, where he now lives.
His family said he was in Moscow over the holidays for the wedding of a fellow former Marine and had planned to travel to St. Petersburg before flying home this weekend. Instead he’s in Lefortovo, a notorious prison run by the KGB in Soviet times and still used for foreigners accused of spying.
Whelan has been visiting Russia since at least 2007, when he took advantage of a military program for Marines deployed in Iraq that gave them 15 days of leave and paid for the travel.
Even before then, he had begun developing a network of contacts throughout Russia. Some said they met him online in 2006 and became “pen pals,” trading practice in English for Russian. Whelan seemed fascinated with Russia and its culture, they said.
For nearly a decade, he has had an account on VKontakte, which means In Contact. Of his 58 friends at the time of his arrest, 54 were men. Many attended universities affiliated with the military, civil aviation or technical studies. Many share his interest in sports and firearms.
“We was guys with guns,” wrote another of his friends, who said he was a student working nights as a security guard when he first met Whalen online.
Both men, who live in separate Russian cities far from Moscow, said they first met Whelan in person in 2008 when he traveled around the country to meet some of his new friends. Others said they have only communicated online.
Whelan’s brother said it would not be surprising to find Russian soldiers among his contacts.
“I’m pretty sure that some of the people he knows through social media are probably Russian soldiers because there are a lot of Russian soldiers and he probably knows one,” David Whelan said in an interview.
One of Paul Whelan’s friends on VKontakte said he believed the arrest was a mistake because a true spy would never act as openly as he did. He said Whelan gave him his home address and they exchanged Christmas cards.
Former CIA officers also have expressed doubts that Whelan was working for US intelligence. They note that the CIA would be unlikely to use someone in Russia without diplomatic immunity and leave them vulnerable to arrest.
Whelan’s Marine record also would likely prevent US intelligence from hiring him. He began active duty with the Marines in 2003 and was deployed twice to Iraq, rising to staff sergeant. But his military career ended with a court martial in 2008, when he was convicted on charges that included attempted larceny and dereliction of duty.
Court documents released by the military show he was accused of attempting to steal more than $10,000 while on duty in Iraq, where he worked as a clerk, in September 2006. He was also convicted of using a false social security number and profile for a military computer system to grade his own examinations, and of writing 10 bad checks totaling around $6,000.
He was dropped two grades in rank and given a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps.
“This guy is not an intel asset,” said Malcom Nance, a veteran intelligence officer. “He’s not the type of person you would use as an asset. There is no way.”
Nance said he suspects Russian intelligence officers have been watching Whelan for years, wondering if they could use him in some way and maybe trying to flip him.
A member of Russia’s parliament suggested Friday that once the investigation into Whelan was completed, he could be swapped for Maria Butina, a Russian woman jailed in the US since July. She pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to act as a foreign agent by trying to infiltrate conservative circles and the National Rifle Association to influence US politics.
However, she has been cooperating with federal prosecutors and is unlikely to spend too much time behind bars. Federal sentencing guidelines call for no jail time to six months.
After his discharge, Whelan returned to his job in the temporary staffing company Kelly Services, based in Troy, Michigan, where he had worked since 2001 in the IT department until taking the leave of military absence. He was Kelly’s head of global security and investigations until 2016.
Early the following year, Whelan joined auto parts supplier BorgWarner as global security director. BorgWarner, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, has facilities around the world but none in Russia and he never traveled to the country for business, company spokeswoman Kathy Graham said.
Jailed American spent years collecting Russian contacts
Jailed American spent years collecting Russian contacts
- Whelan, 48, could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of spying. He is also a citizen of Britain, Canada and Ireland, which brings international pressure on Russia from several fronts
Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years
Spain has largely remained open to receiving migrants even as other European nations seek to tighten their borders to illegal crossings and asylum seekers
MADRID: Spain will legalize about 300,000 undocumented migrants a year, starting next May and through 2027, the country’s migration minister said Wednesday.
The policy aims to expand the aging country’s workforce and allow foreigners living in Spain without proper documentation to obtain work permits and residency. Spain has largely remained open to receiving migrants even as other European nations seek to tighten their borders to illegal crossings and asylum seekers.
Spain needs around 250,000 registered foreign workers a year to maintain its welfare state, Migration Minister Elma Saiz said in an interview on Wednesday. She contended that the legalization policy is not aimed solely at “cultural wealth and respect for human rights, it’s also prosperity.”
“Today, we can say Spain is a better country,” Saiz told national broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has often described his government’s migration policies as a means to combat the country’s low birthrate. In August, Sánchez visited three West African nations in an effort to tackle irregular migration to Spain’s Canary Islands.
The archipelago off the coast of Africa is seen by many as a step toward continental Europe with young men from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and elsewhere embarking on dangerous sea voyages there seeking better job opportunities abroad or fleeing violence and political instability at home.
The new policy, approved Tuesday by Spain’s leftist minority coalition government, simplifies administrative procedures for short and long-term visas and provides migrants with additional labor protections. It extends a visa offered previously to job-seekers for three months to one year.
By mid-November, some 54,000 undocumented migrants had reached Spain this year by sea or land, according to the country’s Interior Ministry. The exact number of foreigners living in Spain without documentation is unclear.
Many irregular migrants make a living in Spain’s underground economy as fruit pickers, caretakers, delivery drivers, or other low-paid but essential jobs often passed over by Spaniards.
Without legal protections, they can be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Saiz said the new policy would help prevent such abuse and “serve to combat mafias, fraud and the violation of rights.”
Spain’s economy is among the fastest-growing in the European Union this year, boosted in part by immigration and a strong rebound in tourism after the pandemic.
In 2023, Spain issued 1.3 million visas to foreigners, according to the government.
Danish military says it staying close to Chinese ship after data cable breaches
- Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday
- “The Danish Defense can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said
STOCKHOLM: The Danish military said on Wednesday that it was staying close to a Chinese ship currently sitting idle in Danish waters, days after two fiber-optic data telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were severed.
Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday, with a Danish navy patrol ship at anchor nearby, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data showed.
“The Danish Defense can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said in a post on social media X, adding it had no further comments.
It is quite rare for Denmark’s military to comment publicly on individual vessels traveling in Danish waters. It did not mention the cable breaches or say why it was staying with the ship.
The Chinese ship left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15 and was in the areas where the cable damages occurred, according to traffic data, which showed other ships to have been in the areas too.
One cable running between Sweden and Lithuania
was cut
on Sunday and another one between Finland and Germany was severed less than 24 hours later on Monday.
The breaches happened in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone and Swedish prosecutors started a preliminary investigation on Tuesday on suspicion of possible sabotage.
Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin told Reuters on Tuesday that the country’s armed forces and coast guard had picked up ship movements that corresponded with the interruption of two telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea.
A Chinese government spokesperson told a daily news briefing on Wednesday that it always required its vessels to abide by relevant laws and regulations.
“We also attach great importance to the protection of seabed infrastructure and, together with the international community, we are actively promoting the construction and protection of submarine cables and other global information infrastructures,” the spokesperson said.
Russia dismissed on Wednesday any suggestion that it had been involved in damaging the two cables.
European governments accused Russia on Tuesday of escalating hybrid attacks on Ukraine’s Western allies, but stopped short of directly accusing Russia of destroying the cables.
Asked about the matter on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular news briefing: “It is quite absurd to continue to blame Russia for everything without any reason.”
Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan gets bail in state gifts case, his party says
- “If the official order is received today, his family and supporters will approach the authorities for his release,” one of his party’s lawyers, Salman Safdar, told journalists
- Safdar added that, as far as he knew, Khan had been granted bail or acquitted in all the cases he faced
ISLAMABAD: A court in Pakistan granted bail to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan in a case relating to the illegal sale of state gifts, his party said on Wednesday.
Khan, 71, has been in prison since August 2023, but it was not immediately clear if the embattled politician would be released given that he faces a number of other charges too, including inciting violence against the state.
“If the official order is received today, his family and supporters will approach the authorities for his release,” one of his party’s lawyers, Salman Safdar, told journalists. Safdar added that, as far as he knew, Khan had been granted bail or acquitted in all the cases he faced.
However, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, told Geo TV Khan lacked bail in cases in which he is charged with planning riots by his supporters in the wake of his arrest in May last year.
Khan denies any wrongdoing, and alleges all the cases registered against him since he was removed from power in 2022 are politically motivated to keep him in jail.
The case in which he was granted bail on Wednesday by the Islamabad High Court is known as the Toshakhana, or state treasury case.
It has multiple versions and charges all revolving around allegations that Khan and his wife illegally procured and then sold gifts worth over 140 million rupees ($501,000) in state possession, which he received during his 2018-22 premiership.
Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were both handed a 14-year sentence on those charges, following a three-year sentence handed to him in late 2023 in another version of the same case.
Their sentences have been suspended in appeals at the high court.
The gifts included diamond jewelry and seven watches, six of them Rolexes — the most expensive being valued at 85 million rupees ($305,000).
Khan’s wife was released last month after being in the same prison as Khan for months.
US defense chief regrets China’s decision not to meet during Southeast Asian security talks
- The decision by Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun “is a setback for the whole region,” Austin said after the first day of meetings
- “It affects the region because the region really wants to see us, two significant players in the region, two significant powers, talk to each other, and that reassures the entire region”
VIENTIANE, Laos: US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed regret Wednesday that his Chinese counterpart chose not to hold talks with him during meetings of Southeast Asian defense chiefs in Laos, calling it a setback for the entire region.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is holding security talks in Vientiane at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China and as the transition to a new US president approaches.
The decision by Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun “is a setback for the whole region,” Austin said after the first day of meetings.
“It’s unfortunate. It affects the region because the region really wants to see us, two significant players in the region, two significant powers, talk to each other, and that reassures the entire region,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from China on its decision not to meet with Austin.
Austin just wrapped up meetings in Australia with officials there and with Japan’s defense minister. They pledged to support ASEAN and expressed their “serious concern about destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas, including dangerous conduct by the People’s Republic of China against Philippines and other coastal state vessels.”
In addition to the United States and China, other nations attending the two-day ASEAN meetings from outside Southeast Asia include Japan, South Korea, India and Australia.
Along with the Philippines, ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims with China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely as its own territory.
Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are the other ASEAN members.
Opening the talks, Laotian Defense Minister Chansamone Chanyalath said he hoped for productive meetings that would “become a standard for us to continue ASEAN’s cooperation in defense, including how to handle, thwart, and manage security challenges in the present and in the future.”
As China has grown more assertive in pushing its territorial claims in recent years, ASEAN members and Beijing have been negotiating a code of conduct to govern behavior in the sea, but progress has been slow.
Officials have agreed to try to complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by thorny issues, including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has called for more urgency in the code of conduct negotiations, complained at a meeting of ASEAN leaders last month that his country “continues to be subject to harassment and intimidation” by China’s actions, which he said violated international law.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam in October charged that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in disputed areas in the South China Sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as their exclusive economic zones.
At the meeting of ASEAN leaders last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes.”
He pledged that the US would “continue to support freedom of navigation, and freedom of overflight in the Indo Pacific.”
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said US and other non-regional militaries present in the sea were the main source of instability.
“The increasing military deployment and activities in the South China Sea by the US and a few other non-regional countries, stoking confrontation and creating tensions, are the greatest source of instability for peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Mao said.
It is not clear how the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will address the South China Sea situation.
After Austin’s meetings in Australia, the Defense Department said the US, Australia and Japan had agreed to expand joint drills and announced a defense consultation body among the three countries’ forces to strengthen their cooperation.
When asked Tuesday while in the Philippines about whether the strong US defense support would continue for the country under Trump, Austin said he would not speculate.
Although Austin failed to hold talks with Chinese Defense Minister Dong, Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani was expected to meet with Dong and express concerns about Beijing’s military activities, Japan’s NHK public television reported.
Japan has protested that a Chinese military aircraft violated its airspace briefly in August, and in September expressed “serious concerns” after a Chinese aircraft carrier and two destroyers sailed between two Japanese islands.
The meetings are also likely to touch on tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the Russia-Ukraine war, and wars in the Middle East. They are also expected to discuss other issues, including natural disasters, cybersecurity and terrorism.
Another thorny regional issue is the civil war and humanitarian crisis in ASEAN member Myanmar. The group’s credibility has been severely tested by the war in Myanmar, where the army ousted an elected government in 2021, and fighting has continued with pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic rebels.
More than a year into an offensive initiated by three militias and joined by other resistance groups, observers estimate the military controls less than half the country.
Myanmar military rulers have been barred from ASEAN meetings since late 2021, but this year the country has been represented by high-level bureaucrats, including at the summit in October.
Spared from Indonesian firing squad, Filipina convict to return home after years of protests
- Mary Jane Veloso has been in Indonesian prison since 2010, awaiting execution
- She will be returned to the Philippines through a transfer of prisoners, authorities say
Jakarta: A Philippine woman who was spared from execution on drug trafficking charges in Indonesia is set to be transferred to her homeland, officials in Manila and Jakarta said on Wednesday, after nearly 15 years of protests and outcry over her case in both countries.
Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina domestic worker, was arrested in Yogyakarta in 2010 for allegedly smuggling 2.6 kg of heroin from Malaysia into Indonesia. She denied the charge, saying she was tricked by a recruiter to bring a suitcase with the drugs hidden in its seams.
Indonesian and Philippine officials announced on Wednesday that a deal has been reached to fulfill Manila’s longstanding request for Veloso to be brought back home to serve her sentence in her country.
“We are doing a transfer of prisoners. We will transfer the convict, and the Philippines will implement the sentence handed down by the Indonesian court,” Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for law, human rights, immigration and correctional institutions, said in a video statement.
“We have submitted the conditions (for the transfer), and it has been accepted by the Philippine government,” he said. “Once she is returned to the Philippines, it is within the authority of President Marcos to grant her pardon … We remain consistent in our ways; Indonesia has never granted pardon for drug convicts.”
In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made the first announcement that Manila had reached an agreement to bring Veloso back to the Philippines after more than a decade of negotiations with the Indonesian government.
“I extend my heartfelt gratitude to President Prabowo Subianto and the Indonesian government for their goodwill,” he said. “Thank you, Indonesia. We look forward to welcoming Mary Jane home.”
Indonesia has one of the world’s harshest anti-narcotics laws, and drug trafficking is punishable by death.
Veloso had been due to be executed by firing squad in 2015 after an Indonesian court convicted her of drug trafficking and gave her the death penalty. But she was granted a stay of execution at the 11th hour to testify in a human trafficking case against her recruiter in the Philippines.
The case has sparked numerous protests in both Indonesia and the Philippines, where people demanded Jakarta spare her from the firing squad. The Philippine government has also sought clemency for Veloso in high-level bilateral meetings, including when former President Joko Widodo visited Manila in January.
Should Veloso’s transfer proceed, it would remove the possibility of her facing an execution, as the Philippines has long abolished the death penalty.
