image
FILE - Elizabeth Whelan, left, sister of U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Russian prisoner Paul Whelan, holds a photo of her brother as she stands alongside Joey Reed, father of U.S. Marine Corps veteran and recently released Russian prisoner Trevor Reed, before a news conference with families of Americans currently being held hostage or wrongfully detained overseas in Lafayette Park near the White House, May 4, 2022, in Washington. Brittney Griner is easily the most prominent American locked up by a foreign country. But the WNBA starâÄ™s case is tangled up with that of another prisoner few Americans have ever heard of. Paul Whelan has been held in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges he and the U.S. government say are false. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)