MOSCOW. Feb 25 (Interfax) - Lawyers have appealed a court's ruling extending the pretrial arrest of accused spy Paul Whelan, a citizen of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the United States.
"We have filed an appeal in which we ask the Moscow City Court to reverse a ruling on extending Whelan's arrest and place him under house arrest or release him on bail, whose size we leave to the discretion of the court," Whelan's defense lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told Interfax on Tuesday.
Moscow's Lefortovsky District Court ruled on February 22 to extend Whelan's arrest pending trial at least until May 28.
Zherebenkov said the appeal had been sent to the court by mail.
Ksenia Pervovlasenko, press secretary for the Lefortovsky Court, said the court had not yet received the appeal.
On December 28, 2018, Whelan was caught red-handed in Moscow. According to his lawyer, a memory stick containing information constituting a state secret was seized from him. However, Whelan says he believed that the memory stick contained personal information from his previous visits to Russia, but did not have the time to look at its contents.
On December 29, the Lefortovsky Court ordered to arrest U.S. citizen Whelan until February 28.
It emerged later that Whelan is also a citizen of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada. Those countries' embassies to Russia have received requests for assistance from him.
Whelan did not admit to any wrongdoing, considered his prosecution a mistake and was hopeful that the truth would be revealed by the investigation.
The investigation is being conducted professionally and in full compliance with the law, the lawyer said.
Whelan's brother David said additionally that Paul is a retired marine. The detainee's family has sought assistance from the U.S. Congress, the U.S. embassy to Russia, and the Department of State, David Whelan said.