The Prisoner-Swap.

While we have been confused (or maybe hoodwinked) over the gender of that Algerian boxer at the Olympics, another longer trick has been played particularly on the Spanish.

This is the Spanish journalist who had been held without charge in Poland for the past thirty months, while the foreign ministry apparently did nothing at all to help.

But maybe they knew something we didn’t.

The journo, known to us as the left-wing Pablo Gónzalez, but to the Russians as Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, has been released as part of a major prisoner swap between the USA and Russia.

In all, sixteen prisoners returned to the West last week, while another eight of them headed East.  

That’s right, Pablo was on the list of prisoners claimed by the Kremlin and he’s now in Moscow.  

We read that ‘Pablo's legal team has issued a statement stressing that the release was made possible thanks to Russia's "genuine interest" and "intense negotiations" between the parties involved. According to his lawyers, while Russia was working to resolve the situation, others were focused on criminalizing the journalist instead of protecting his rights’.

Now, his return to Russia raises new questions about his true identity and the reasons behind his detention and release. Was he one of ours unjustly held by the Poles for thirty months, as the Spanish press has claimed all along… or perhaps one of theirs?

The Americans at least aren’t in any doubt: ‘Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that “a group of brave journalists and democracy activists are being exchanged for a group of brutal spies.” The exchange included no money or sanctions relief…’

Elsewhere, we read that ‘Poland's former foreign minister during most of Pablo González's imprisonment, Zbigniew Rau, said on Friday that this Spanish citizen is, in fact, a "senior officer of the Russian military intelligence", thereby justifying his confinement…’

In honour of these brave men returned to Mother Russia, Vladimir Putin has promised to dish out medals to all of them, including Pablo and also the notorious hit-man Vadim Krasikov, who was being held by the Germans.

A comment floating around underlines the Spanish disenchantment: ‘Full marks to Putin for caring about the plight of an innocent Spanish journalist. No doubt but that he will have done it to protect press freedom and not because he worked for the Russians’.

Will Pablo (Pavel) return to Spain? His wife certainly hopes so. See, he has double nationality, says the media (come to think of it, it’s odd that we aren’t allowed the same privilege).

Anyway, Joe Biden got the Wall Street Journal journalist Even Gershkovich back (with several others held by the Russians), so everything worked out fine.

Except for that poor Algerian pugilist, who remains on the Facebook (s)hit-list.