U.S. Congress Eager to Investigate Murder of Reporters in Russia
The U.S. Congress passed yesterday a resolution on murder of dozens of independent journalists in Russia. The document calls on President George Bush to urge his Russia’s counterpart Vladimir Putin to accept assistance of foreign detectives in clearing crimes. No help of the United States is needed, representatives of Russia’s enforcement authorities promptly responded all investigating difficulties notwithstanding.
In Russia, the murder cases of Forbes Russia Editor-in-Chief Paul Klebnikov, Novaya Gazeta investigating journalist Anna Politkovskaya and Kommersant military correspondent Ivan Safronov haven’t been cleared so far, said the resolution of the U.S. Congress, specifying that almost 90 reporters have been killed in the country since 1996 and many of those cases are still unsolved.
The U.S. Congress simply “generates anti-Russian phobia,” State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev said, when commenting on the U.S. initiative. According to Kosachev, the usual root cause of it is the lack of objective data. “Congressmen generally use two sources of information, the radically-tuned opposition parties and equally radical nongovernmental organizations,” the official explained. “Their point of view has the right to exist, of course, but it couldn’t be the only one,” added diplomatic Kosachev.
Anyway, Russian’s detectives are clearly reluctant to give a squeeze to the helping hand of the United States. Moscow investigator Anton Serous, who probes into the case of Ivan Safronov, insists that the journalist himself jumped out of the window and today’s concern is to determine his motives. “Our own resources will suffice,” Serous pointed out.
The murder of Paul Klebnikov has been cleared, according to Russia’s prosecutors. The tricky point is that the persons guilty in it haven’t been punished, as their whereabouts are yet unknown. As to Anna Politkovskaya, dozens of detectives of Prosecutor General Office, Interior Ministry and FSB are dealing with it without making any comments on the issue.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 20, 2007
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