He said, “I feel awful being home without Paul here.” He said, “I don’t understand why I’m here, and Paul isn’t.” Paula, in front of CNN’s Jake Tapper on The Lead on Friday.
Reid was released during a prisoner exchange in Turkey on Wednesday after being detained for nearly three years. His release drew new attention to the cases of Whelan and WNBA player Britney Greener, who was arrested by Russian authorities in February at Moscow airport and charged with smuggling significant quantities of drugs.
Whelan, a U.S. citizen and former Marine, was arrested in Moscow on espionage charges in 2018 and subsequently sentenced to 16 years in prison in a trial that U.S. officials denounced as unfair.
After Reid Whelan’s release, he also wondered why he was not involved in the prisoner exchange.
“Why was I abandoned? While I’m happy that Trevor is home with his family, I’ve been on fictitious espionage charges for 40 months, “Whelan, also a UK, Irish and Canadian national, told CNN. “The world knows this accusation is fabricated. Why hasn’t more been done to secure my release?”
The Reed family told Tapper that Trevor had asked members of Russia’s FSB security agency, who took him to a prisoner exchange with Russian Konstantin Yaroshenko, about Whelan’s status. “He said, ‘Where are the other Americans?'” Said his father, Joey Reed. “And they said, ‘It’s just you.’
Officials said Reed’s health was a driving factor in securing his release. Earlier, his family said he had Covid-19, was exposed to tuberculosis, and told them in March that he was “coughing up blood several times a day, having a fever and still having lung pain.”
Now in the United States, Paula Reed said her son “seems to be doing a little better every day.”
“I think he’s settling in and we had a great time with him yesterday,” she said. “And at the end of the visit, he looked more like himself, told us stories, made us laugh.”
The Reed family said on Friday that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had told them in a virtual meeting that he was working on “bringing others home”.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told CNN’s Jim Scuto on Wednesday that the Greens and Whelan cases remain top priorities for the United States.
After Reid’s release, President Joe Biden said in a statement: “The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly. His safe return is proof of the priority my administration places on the return home of Americans held hostage and unlawfully detained abroad. ”
The president said his administration “will not stop” until Whelan and other detained Americans are returned home.
CNN’s Andy Rose contributed to this report.
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