The identities of the people concerned in a large-scale prisoner trade orchestrated by Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) on Thursday have sparked vital intrigue.
The operation, one of the intensive in latest historical past, concerned 26 detainees held in varied prisons throughout the US, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, Russia and Belarus.
Among the distinguished figures within the trade have been Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan, German mercenary Rico Krieger, Russian opposition activist Ilya Yashin and Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Vadim Krasikov.
– EVAN GERSHKOVICH
Evan Gershkovich, born in 1991 to a Jewish household that emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States, grew up talking Russian. In 2022, he joined The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau as a reporter. In March 2023, Gershkovich was detained in Yekaterinburg, round 1,416 kilometers (880 miles) east of Moscow, on suspicion of espionage. He is accused of spying for the US authorities, with the FSB alleging he was gathering categorised data on a Russian tank manufacturing facility. Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal and US officers denied the fees, with US President Joe Biden demanding his launch. Gershkovich was convicted in July and sentenced to 16 years in jail, marking the primary time a US journalist has been convicted of espionage in Russia because the Cold War.
– PAUL WHELAN
Paul Whelan, a former US Marine with citizenship in Canada, the US, the UK and Ireland, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 on espionage prices. In June 2020, he was sentenced to 16 years in jail, a verdict he and US officers have persistently contested. Biden earlier highlighted long-lasting efforts to facilitate the discharge of Whelan, the longest-held prisoner within the swap.
Whelan was accused of possessing a flash drive containing delicate Russian knowledge when he was arrested on the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. He claimed the drive, given to him by a Russian acquaintance, contained solely vacation images.
– ILYA YASHIN
Ilya Yashin, a identified Russian opposition determine, confronted quite a few short-term imprisonments for his activism. In 2022, he was labeled a international agent for receiving funds from overseas and sentenced to eight.5 years for allegedly spreading false details about the Russian navy on-line. He was additionally related to the late opposition chief Alexei Navalny.
– RICO KRIEGER
German nationwide Rico Krieger, born in 1993, admitted to conducting sabotage in Belarus on Ukrainian intelligence orders. Convicted of terrorism and espionage, he was sentenced to loss of life on June 24, however Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko not too long ago pardoned him. Krieger previously labored for Pond Security, which supplied companies to US services in Germany.
– VADIM KRASIKOV
Vadim Krasikov, reportedly an FSB officer, was serving a life sentence in Germany for the homicide of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. He had been imprisoned since December 2021. Russian President Vladimir Putin described Khangoshvili as a separatist with connections to Chechnya.
Source: www.anews.com.tr