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Geneva summit of Biden and Putin: the "dealer of death" can hope

2021-06-21T02:28:22.803Z


Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin didn't agree on anything concrete at their summit. But an agreement could come: the exchange of prisoners with high symbolic value - like the arms dealer But. It's about these men.


Chess piece in the game of world powers: weapons smuggler Wiktor But

Photo: CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

The state guests have left, the streets have reopened, road sweepers are sweeping away the last remnants of the international march.

Passers-by enjoy the sun on the promenades by the lake.

Just hours after the summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, Geneva looks like nothing has happened.

The three-hour tête-à-tête of the presidents from Washington and Moscow revealed little concrete.

Nevertheless, a few unfinished business that Biden and Putin discussed have not been fully resolved, but have decided to resubmit them soon.

Some of it got lost in the other headlines of the day.

For example the story with the prisoners.

He had "brought up" the matter with Putin and will also "bring the discussion to an end," said Biden at his final press conference.

He had "hope" for the families affected: "I will not forget that," he assured with the tremor that is typical for him.

Putin confirmed this: "A certain compromise could be found," he said in Geneva.

The responsible foreign ministries had been instructed to "work towards this direction."

This was also indicated by the presence of the two ambassadors at the meeting, who had been recalled in the spring but are now supposed to return to their posts in Moscow and Washington.

Hostages for political concessions?

Why is?

The USA and Russia have long been negotiating an explosive prisoner exchange without success.

Washington wants to bring home two US citizens who are sitting in Russian prisons, while Moscow demands the release of two Russians from American custody in return.

Both sides describe their citizens as innocent hostages who were only convicted to extort political concessions.

Indeed, all four - guilty or innocent - have become pawns in the game of world powers.

"The president made it very, very clear that these cases must be resolved," said a Biden adviser after the Geneva meeting.

It's about these men.

Paul Whelan

A year ago a Moscow court sentenced the ex-marine to 16 years in prison for espionage.

The 51-year-old, who has American, British, Canadian and Irish citizenship, claims to have been a tourist and wedding guest in Moscow and claims to have been lured into a trap by a Russian acquaintance.

He was arrested in 2018 at the Moscow luxury hotel Metropole.

Whelan is sitting in a maximum security prison eight hours' drive southeast of Moscow and in a BBC interview in 2020 lamented his "very, very gloomy existence" there.

In a sound recording released before the Geneva summit, he appealed to Biden to intervene with Putin.

He is now held hostage longer than the US hostages in Tehran (1979-1981).

"I'm still innocent," he said.

"Please take me back to my family and my dog ​​Flora, where I belong."

Trevor Reed

A Moscow court sentenced the Texas student to nine years in prison in July 2020. He is said to have assaulted two police officers. Reed, 29, also a former US Marine, was in Moscow to visit his Russian girlfriend and fell drunk on the way home from a party that evening. Police drove him to the station to sober him up and then said he had attacked her in the car. Reed disagrees. The US government called the process "theater of the absurd".

In the run-up to the summit, Putin described the American as a "troublemaker": "He got drunk and started a fight," he said in an interview with NBC News.

“Among other things, he hit a cop.” Before the meeting in Geneva, Reed's parents asked Biden to take their son home.

He fell ill with Covid-19 in prison, but did not get any medication.

In a letter dated June 7th, he complained of chest pain and cough.

Viktor But

The Russian arms smuggler is the most famous name among the four. But's life was documented in the book "The Dealer of Death" and inspired the 2005 Hollywood film "Lord of War" with Nicholas Cage. The former military interpreter got rich smuggling weapons from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East. His customers are said to have included despots like Charles Taylor in Liberia and Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya - as well as the Taliban, which But denies.

Interpol has been hunting But since 2002. The now 52-year-old was arrested in 2008 during an undercover operation in Bangkok.

He believed he was selling rockets, AK-47 rifles and other weapons to Colombian FARC rebels, but they were agents of the US drug agency DEA.

After much back and forth, he was extradited to the United States and in 2011 sentenced by a New York court to 25 years in prison for terrorism - against the bitter protests of Russia.

Konstantin Yaroshenko

The Russian, condemned as a drug smuggler in the USA, is less known to the Americans, but a

cause célèbre

for Moscow

. The Russian government officially asked Biden's predecessor Donald Trump in 2017 to pardon Yaroshenko, but this was rejected. Talks about an exchange are said to have started, even under Trump.

The 52-year-old was hired by two men in 2010 to help them smuggle cocaine on a large scale from South America to Liberia. Some of the drugs would have got to the USA from there. Like But, Yaroshenko also got caught up in the network of US drug investigators: the men were informants for the DEA. When the DEA was digging a drug ring in Liberia, Yaroshenko was arrested and taken to the United States, where he was sentenced to 20 years. Moscow calls him "our pilot" and a hostage-taking victim.

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-06-21

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