Kevin Lik: Teenage prisoner swapped by Russia felt like ‘hostage’

Suddenly, as he was leaving the bath house on Tuesday 23 July, he was approached by a senior prison officer and told he had 20 minutes to “urgently write a petition” for a presidential pardon, which he did.

Then, on the 28th, a prison officer stopped him and told him to get his toothbrush, toothpaste and slippers.

“Usually, you get this kit when they’re about to put you in the punishment cell,” explains Kevin. But instead, he was locked in an office.

At 01:00 on the morning of Monday 29th, a convoy arrived to take him away.

The thought of being exchanged was at the back of Kevin’s mind, but seemed too good to be true.

He was flown to Moscow, where he was kept in jail until Thursday 1 August, when he was put on a plane with the other prisoners who were being swapped.

It was never spelled out to him that he was being exchanged, he says, but by the time he was in the air bound for Turkey it was clear what was happening.

As Kevin had long-suspected, assassin Vadim Krasikov was among those being returned to Russia.

In Germany, after a hospital check-up, Kevin was finally able to greet his mother, who had got a visa to fly in from Russia.

“She cried. I told her everything was fine, not to worry, that I loved her very much.”

Mother and son are now living in Germany and Kevin is full of enthusiasm to finish school.

“I don’t have a desire for revenge, but I do have a very strong desire to participate in opposition activities,” he tells me.

Kevin still has his prison uniform, stuffed in a bag in the corner of his room.

When I ask what he wanted most of all while he was forced to wear it, he simply replies: “To hug Mum of course.”