#Pompeo rips Russia over spying conviction for former Marine

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expressing his outrage at the conviction of a former US marine on spying charges in Russia, slamming the trial as illegitimate and demanding the man’s release.

In a statement released Monday, Pompeo decried the conviction and 16-year prison sentence delivered to Paul Whelan, a 50-year-old man with US, British, Canadian and Irish passports who was arrested in December 2018.

“The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict US citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses,” Pompeo said, “We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations.”

Pompeo went on to condemn how Whelan had been treated by the Russian government, referring to it as “appalling.”

“Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends.”

“We demand Paul Whelan’s immediate release,” he closed.

Pompeo had previously called for Whelan’s release in late May, as the US raised repeated concerns about his deteriorating health while in Russian custody.

The chief diplomat’s statement comes after Whelan’s brother David spoke out, asking the US to intervene on his sibling’s behalf.

David Whelan said Monday lawyers planned to appeal his brother’s verdict, which he denounced as political, adding in a statement that “the court’s decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process.”

“We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities,” the statement said, “We look to the U.S. government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home.”

On Monday, the Moscow City Court sentenced Whelan to spend 16 years in a maximum-security prison on charges of espionage.

Whelan, along with his family, has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up. The US Embassy has also denounced Whelan’s trial as unfair, arguing that no evidence has actually been provided to prove his guilt.

The charges against the once-frequent Russian tourist related to a thumb drive in his possession, according to the New York Times.

Whelan maintains that a Russian friend handed him that thumb drive, which he thought contained photos from their recent trip to a monastery town near Moscow, but Kremlin officials claimed it contained classified information.

Russian prosecutors used the thumb drive as part of their evidence that Whelan was acting as an officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency of the United States, the paper reports.

Prior to being sentenced, Whelan remarked that he did not understand a word of what happened during court proceedings because they were conducted entirely in Russian.

“This is slimy, greasy, rubbish Russian politics — nothing more, nothing less. This is all a political theater,” the former Marine said.

With Post wires