Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan described over the weekend being tortured inside a Russian labor camp where he was illegally held for years after Russia held him on bogus charges in an attempt to force the U.S. to release incarcerated Russian spies.
Whelan made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” with host Margaret Brennan while discussing what it was like being held in a FSB prison.
“The Russian government wanted to put pressure on the United States by treating me badly,” he said. “Sleep deprivation is considered torture. What the Russians did in Lefortovo Prison, it’s the FSB prison in Moscow, they kept a light on 24 hours in my cell. So sleeping was very difficult.”
“At the labor camp for four years, they would come every two hours to my bed at night, and they would wake me up,” he continued. “They’d shine a light in my face and take a picture. At first, they would ask me, you know, what my name was, things like that. But it turned into harassment. So for that four year period, every night, every two hours, I was woken up. Getting off that sleep pattern has been very, very difficult. So now you know, I’m sleeping better than I was, but it is still tremendously difficult to sleep for six or eight hours at a time.”
He said that he worked in a forced labor camp and now suffers from PTSD.
“I think it’s very difficult,” he said. “And, you know, you throw in the piece with the sleep deprivation and some of the other shenanigans. You know, holding books, holding mail, not letting me, you know, experience my own language. You know, not letting me hear my own language. You know, even though it’s against the law for them to try to force me to speak Russian, things like that.”
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