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David Whelan said his brother, who had been detained in a Mordovian penal colony, was released either Thursday or Friday. He had not been able to speak to his family, his lawyer Olga Karlova for a month, or the US Embassy, and according to David Whelan he still has not spoken to the Embassy or Karlova.
“He seems to have survived solitary confinement none the worse for wear but he was wary on the phone,” David Whelan said in an email to CNN, adding that Paul “mentioned to our parents that his ability to call is ‘on sufferance’ and so perhaps he anticipates additional retribution.”
According to David Whelan, Paul does not know why he was put in solitary confinement.
On Friday, the US Embassy in Moscow said the “Russian government has not responded to our repeated requests for updates about” Paul Whelan, and embassy spokesperson Jason Rebholz urged the Russian Foreign Ministry “to honor its obligations & respond to our requests for information.”
A State Department spokesperson told CNN Sunday that they “are aware of reports that authorities have released Paul from isolated detention.” “We remain focused on securing the release of Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed,” who is another American detained in Russia, the spokesperson said.
The US Embassy in Moscow said last week it still does not know the whereabouts of American citizen Reed, who was sentenced to 9 years in prison last summer by the Russian government.
David Whelan noted in an email to the press last week that “the resources to provide consular support for Paul out in the middle of Mordovia have never been thinner,” given a new restriction by the Russian government barring the US from retaining, hiring or contracting Russian or third-country staff.
CNN reported last month that David Whelan had said his brother returned to his labor camp in late June after spending nearly three weeks in a medical facility at a different camp.
According to David, Paul Whelan was not given medical attention until two weeks into his stay there, and after a chest and elbow X-ray, “he was given no additional medical treatment.”
“I raised the case of two wrongfully imprisoned American citizens, Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed,” Biden said during a news following the summit in Geneva. “The families of the detained Americans came up and we discussed them. We’re going to follow through with that discussion. I am not going to walk away on that.”
CNN’s Devan Cole and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
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