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Nizhny Novgorod court to consider American spy’s possible transfer to US on November 8

On December 28, 2018, Paul Whelan was detained by Russia’s FSB while on an alleged spy mission

MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. A court in Nizhny Novgorod will hold a hearing, on November 8, over an appeal to transfer US citizen Paul Whelan, convicted in Russia on espionage charges, to the United States, his attorney Olga Karlova told TASS on Monday.

"The Fourth Court of Appeals in Nizhny Novgorod will consider the issue of Whelan’s transfer to the United States to complete his sentence on November 8. The court session will begin at ten in the morning," she said.

Whelan’s defense attorneys earlier lodged a motion on Whelan’s transfer with the Supreme Court of Russia’s Republic of Mordovia but the court turned it down. Following the defense counsel’s appeal, Mordovia’s Supreme Court referred the case to the Fourth Court of Appeals in Nizhny Novgorod. The court’s press secretary Ekaterina Terebilova confirmed the hearings date.

On December 28, 2018, Whelan, who holds US, UK, Canadian and Irish citizenship, was detained by Russia’s 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. On June 15, 2020, the Moscow City Court found Whelan guilty of spying against Russia and sentenced him to 16 years in a high security colony. Whelan is serving his sentence in Correctional Colony No. 17 in Mordovia.