NEW YORK (Michigan News Source) – Paul Whelan, a 53-year-old American veteran, was arrested in Russia on December 28, 2018 after being accused of spying while he worked as director of global security and investigations for BorgWarner, an automotive parts manufacturer based in Michigan. He was given a sentence of 16 years at a labor camp in the remote province of Mordovia and is currently serving his fifth year. Both Whelan and the U.S. government contend that he’s being wrongfully detained by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Ever since Whelan’s arrest, his family, including twin brother David and sister Elizabeth, have been passionately and tirelessly fighting for his release. Elizabeth’s latest fight was at the United Nations in New York City were she was invited to the Security Council meeting by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

In remarks prior to the meeting, Elizabeth said, “I am here to tell Russia: free Paul Whelan.”

Elizabeth spoke about her brother, Paul, outside of the meeting room after Thomas-Greenfield gave her own remarks as they were flanked by ambassadors from Canada and Ireland. From there, they went in separate entrances to the chamber. Elizabeth sat in the visitors gallery for two hours in the front row, directly opposite from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian delegates. She stood up when Thomas-Greenfield mentioned her name.

Thomas-Greenfield said at the meeting, “I want Minister Lavrov to look into her eyes and see her suffering. I want you to see what it’s like to miss your brother for four years, to know he is locked up in a Russian penal colony simply because you want to use him for your own means. I am calling on you, right now, to release Paul Whelan [and] Evan Gershkovich immediately, to let Paul and Evan come home, and to cease this barbaric practice once and for all.”

Elizabeth didn’t speak during the meeting but she was in the chamber while Lavrov was chairing the meeting and discussed “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the Charter of the United States.”

Elizabeth, who doesn’t think too much about Russia’s multilateralism, told reporters at the U.N. “Russia’s less-than-sophisticated take on diplomacy is to arbitrarily detain American citizens in order to extract concessions from the United States. This is not the work of a mature and responsible nation; it is the action of a terrorist state.”

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Elizabeth attended the meeting on the heels of the Whelan family vocalizing their frustration with the Biden administration over the lack of movement in getting Paul back home to the United States. They fear that the Biden Administration will make a deal to get newly detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich back home and leave Whelan in Russia like they did when they secured the release of WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner.

Elizabeth said to reporters, “This Russian playbook is so lazy that even Evan has the same investigator, a man who harassed and interrogated my brother until Paul’s sham trial in June of 2020, when Paul was given a horrific sentence of 16 years for a crime he did not commit. Now Paul is being held in labor camp IK-17 in the remote province of Mordovia, held as a pawn and victim of Russia’s descent into lawlessness.”

She continued, “Paul was a corporate security director. He had a job he loved, a home, a life of hope and opportunity. All that has been taken away from him by Russia, a country that revels in its culture of lies, its tradition of hostage diplomacy…I am here today to tell the global community that one way to engage in effective multilateralism is to confront those countries that resort to hostage diplomacy.”