MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. American student Trevor Reed, sentenced for attacking police officers in Moscow, and American Paul Whelan, found guilty of espionage, will be held in different penal colonies in Mordovia, Eva Merkacheva from Moscow’s Public Oversight Commission told TASS.
"Reed [was sentenced] to minimum security, while Whelan was sentenced to serve his time at a high security colony. That is why they will be in the same region, in Mordovia, but in different colonies." According to the official, Reed was brought to a detention facility in Saransk, and then will be sent to one of the colonies in Mordovia.
Earlier on Friday, Moscow’s Public Oversight Commission told TASS that Reed was sent to one of Mordovia’s penal colonies. "Today we were told that Reed was sent to one of Mordovia’s penal colonies. Paul Whelan, sentenced for espionage, is serving his sentence in the same region," said Executive Secretary of Moscow’s Public Oversight Commission Alexey Melnikov.
As earlier reported, at the Russian-US presidential summit in Geneva in June, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Joe Biden discussed an exchange of prisoners. Biden specified that at the Geneva meeting he talked about Americans Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed sentenced in Russia.
On December 28, 2018, Whelan, who has the citizenship of the US, the UK, Canada, and Ireland, was detained by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in a room of the Metropol Hotel in Moscow while on an alleged spy mission. The FSB opened a criminal case against him on charges of espionage under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code. The Moscow City Court found Whelan guilty of spying against Russia, and sentenced him to 16 years in a high security colony.
Last year, American student Reed was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony for a violent assault of police officers. According to investigators, last August in Moscow, he attacked the policemen after they responded to a complaint about an intoxicated man, who started an argument with several women. When the foreigner was taken to a police station, in a vehicle, he attacked the driver and his partner.