Families of Americans held overseas lobby White House
WASHINGTON — The release of Trevor Reed from a Russian prison last week was cause for unadulterated celebration for his family. For Elizabeth Whelan, the experience was far more bittersweet.
When Whelan learned in an early-morning phone call from U.S. government officials that Reed was on his way home but that her brother, Paul, also imprisoned in Russia, was not, she says she uttered words that “cannot be repeated,” threw her phone onto the sofa in exasperation and knew she’d have to call her parents — in their 80s — to break the difficult news.
“This is not something a normal family, just an everyday family, has to ever deal with. It is horrific,” said Whelan, whose brother is serving a 16year sentence on espionage-related charges that his family says are bogus. The U.S. government also considers Whelan’s detention unjust and officials have called on Russia to release him.
Reed’s release in a surprise prisoner swap triggered similar mixed emotions for the families of Americans wrongfully detained overseas. It has also emboldened them: They hope to build off that rare burst of momentum and employ the same publicity tactics that worked for the Reeds.
On Wednesday, relatives of American captives in countries including Venezuela, Iran and Rwanda gathered outside the White House on Wednesday to plead for the Biden administration’s attention and to launch a new initiative to get their loved ones’ home. Several also urged the administration to consider additional prisoner swaps like the one that brought home Reed, who was exchanged for a convicted Russian drug trafficker.
Everett Rutherford, whose nephew, Matthew Heath, is jailed in Venezuela, said the Biden administration needs to display “courage” and “moral fiber.” Heath, a former U.S. Marine corporal, was arrested in 2020 and accused by President Nicolas Maduro of being a terrorist and spying for Donald Trump.
Besides Reed’s release, Biden met at the White House on Monday with the parents of Austin Tice, an American journalist abducted in Syria in August 2012. Their meeting came after Tice’s mother, Debra, attended the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
The following day, the State Department announced that it had reclassified Brittney Griner, a WNBA star imprisoned in Russia on a drug-related charge, as wrongfully detained. The designation assigns her case to the office of the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, which negotiates for the release of hostages and wrongful detainees.
In March, the U.S. secured the release of an American oil executive in Venezuela, Gustavo Cardenas, as well as another American jailed there. But five other of Cardenas’s colleagues, known collectively as the “Citgo 6 ” for the Houston oil company where they all worked, were left behind.
Alexandra Forseth, whose father and uncle are jailed in Venezuela as part of the Citgo 6, said there’s always a “roller coaster” of emotions from joy that someone is being released to “terror” over how much political capital the U.S. government may have expended to make a deal happen.