Select date
Spike in ‘cathedral tourism’ thanks to cultural pursuits of ‘spies’? Twitter notices a pattern
A lawyer for Paul Whelan, the American arrested in Moscow on suspicion of espionage, has claimed that he simply wanted pictures of Russian cathedrals, but happened to receive a memory stick containing state secrets instead.
The defense immediately drew comparisons with the case of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two Russian citizens who claimed they were only in Salisbury to visit its cathedral after the UK government accused them of being part of a plot to poison ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal last year.
In the strange case of Paul Whelan, his lawyer says Whelan was expecting photos of Russian churches but got memory stick containing state secrets. https://t.co/S5lUJ4V5YJ
— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) January 22, 2019
According to his lawyer, Whelan is someone who is interested in Russia and was “keen to get information of cultural interest” — including the pictures of cathedrals. Astute Twitter users quickly pointed out that the ex-marine seemed to be using the same excuse as Petrov and Boshirov...and they had some burning questions.
Chief among those questions: What’s with accused spies and visiting cathedrals? Is there a conspiracy here? Is ‘visiting a cathedral’ some kind of code for other super-secret spy activities?
Could Paul Whelan's supposed interest in a Russian church be some sort of "reciprocal response" to Petrov & Boshirov's obsession with Salisbury Cathedral?
— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) January 22, 2019
Is "visiting cathedrals" some sort of "spy" codespeak?...
