U.S. Marine veteran Paul Whelan told CNN on Thursday that he was “greatly disappointed” that President Joe Biden’s deal to secure Brittney Griner’s release from a Russian prison did not also include a release for him.

Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia for nearly four years since his arrest, is currently serving 16 years in a penal colony for a crime that he says never happened. The Canadian-born Marine veteran — who holds U.S., British, and Irish citizenship — was arrested in 2018 and accused of espionage. He was sentenced to prison two years later.

Although he was happy to see Griner released, he was disappointed to have been left behind, Whelan told CNN’s Jennifer Hansler from the Russian prison on Thursday.

WATCH:

“[Whelan] has been there nearly 4 years on espionage charges … He was very disappointed that he was left behind, though he was very happy that Brittney Griner got out.”

— CNN’s @jmhansler on Paul Whelan, who is still detained in Russia, reacting to Brittney Griner’s release pic.twitter.com/DkfzcPJL5z

— The Recount (@therecount) December 8, 2022

“I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,” Whelan said. “I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here.”

Whelan also told Hansler that in the days and weeks leading up to the prisoner swap — Griner for international arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is also known as the “Merchant of Death” — he had actually begun to believe that there was some hope he would be included in the deal.

Whelan’s family also released a statement in the wake of the news, saying that it was always a great day when a wrongfully imprisoned person was released, but that they still hoped for the day it would happen for him.

His brother noted that the family had been warned ahead of the news breaking that Paul would not be a part of the swap, adding, “That early warning meant that our family has been able to mentally prepare for what is now a public disappointment for us. And a catastrophe for Paul. I do not know if he is aware yet, although he will surely learn from Russian media … I can’t even fathom how Paul will feel when he learns. Paul has worked so hard to survive nearly 4 years of this injustice. His hopes had soared with the knowledge that the US government was taking concrete steps for once towards his release. He’d been worrying about where he’d live when he got back to the U.S.”

Whelan’s family made it clear that they did not begrudge Griner gaining her freedom, noting that the two cases were separate and that there had always been a chance that they would be freed one at a time.

Next week, thousands of documents revolving around the JFK assassination are expected to be released, documents that the CIA and FBI have fought to keep secret.

The National Archives and Records Administration has been arguing with the CIA and FBI for years, asserting that the agencies were ignoring the 1992 John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act that was designed to release all the documents.

According to POLITICO, correspondence between the National Archives and Records Administration and other agencies revealed that the CIA and FBI wanted the documents secret because intelligence and law-enforcement informants from the era of the assassination who are still alive could be at risk by being publicly identified.

New York attorney Larry Schnapf filed a federal lawsuit in October against President Biden and the National Archives in which he demanded the release of the remaining assassination documents. He obtained the correspondence between the Archives and the other agencies with a Freedom of Information Act request.

One of Schnapf’s clients, Jefferson Morley, the Vice President of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, said he thought 44 of the unreleased documents mention a covert CIA program involving Cuba and Lee Harvey Oswald, who has historically been acknowledged as Kennedy’s assassin.

“What are they hiding? There’s 44 documents that we know exist, that are assassination-related but have not been released. And they relate to covert programs in which George Joannides was involved,” Morley said, referring to a man who guided an anti-Fidel Castro group and came into contact with Oswald when he was connected to a pro-Castro group. “There was authorized operational activity around Oswald before the assassination. And that’s what’s in these withheld documents.”

The 1992 John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act catalyzed the release of files that suggested the CIA’s Mexico City station had surveilled Oswald when he visited Mexico City several weeks before the assassination and boasted he would kill Kennedy.

POLITICO contended that documents point to the fact that the failure of the CIA station in Mexico to act with more speed when they surveilled Oswald in September and October 1963 prevented them from possibly stopping the assassination.

A recent NBC News poll found that over 70% of voters wanted President Biden to order the rest of the JFK assassination records released on December 15.

“There’s not a lot that unites a lot of American voters these days, but one of the few things that does is to see President Biden release the long-overdue JFK files as he promised a year ago,” Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi stated.