Russian officials reject US allegations over Boston bombing suspect case

Boston Bombings Suspects File Photo Adapted from FBI Image

(RIA Novosti – April 10, 2014) The allegations that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) declined to provide its American counterparts with comprehensive information about Tamerlan Tsarnayev, one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, is another manifestation of “anti-Russian hysteria”, Igor Korotchenko, the editor in chief of the Natsionalnaya Oborona (National Defence) magazine and a member of the public council under the Russian Defence Ministry, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on 10 April.

Korotchenko was commenting on The New York Times article headlined “Russia Didn’t Share All Details on Boston Bombing Suspect, Report Says” published on 9 April.

“I think that the FBI has decided to participate in this anti-Russian hysteria that is now under way in the United States in connection with the events in Ukraine. Such statements are purely political,” Korotchenko said. In fighting terrorism, Russia is very much interested in cooperating with the United States, and the only reason to withhold information could have been to protect FSB’s sources within separatist groups in the North Caucasus, he noted. Korotchenko described the allegations as inappropriate and groundless. He suggested that, in this manner, the Americans were trying to divert attention from their own failures.

The chairman of the Russian Federation Council Defence and Security Committee, Viktor Ozerov, described the allegations as a “clearly provocative move, shifting the blame on others”. Russian and American law-enforcement agencies have been working to establish cooperation for years, but “now this report is misleading the public opinion and undermining the foundations of cooperation between our law-enforcement agencies in combating terrorism, illegal migration, drug trafficking and so on,” Ozerov told RIA Novosti.

Igor Barinov MP, a member of the State Duma Defence Committee, also rejected the allegation. “The Tsarnaevs have been living in the United States for a long time. If there were any connections with extremist and terrorist organizations, they were in the United States in the first place. As regards the information that our security services had, we shared it with Americans,” Barinov told RIA. “Naturally, people died, a terrible tragedy occurred, and in this situation no-one wants to look guilty, and they, of course, are trying to somehow shift blame onto others,” he added.

 

Comment