Peskov Slams 'Conspiracy' Versions Of Russian Journalists' Murder In Central Africa

Peskov Slams 'Conspiracy' Versions of Russian Journalists' Murder in Central Africa

The Kremlin takes note of "private" attempts to investigate last year's murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic, but cannot qualify the "conspiracy" versions as a serious approach, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd January, 2019) The Kremlin takes note of "private" attempts to investigate last year's murder of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic, but cannot qualify the "conspiracy" versions as a serious approach, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

On Monday, Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets released fragments of the Russian Foreign Ministry's diplomatic correspondence concerning the triple murder, claiming that these fragments proved that the case failed to receive sufficient attention. Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the ministry, slammed the report as "unsavory."

"We certainly tend to focus on investigative activities that the Investigative Committee carries out. We certainly take note of private attempts to carry out these or those kinds of investigation into the matter, but we can currently state that these attempts mostly come down to kind of conspiracy and so on, and this can hardly be associated with a serious approach," Peskov told reporters.

When asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin was satisfied with Investigative Committee's reports on investigation process, Peskov said that the committee reported about everything it considered necessary. He added that while investigation was underway, only a "smaller part" of its details was being revealed publicly.

He also said that the Kremlin had read the article by Moskovsky Komsomolets.

"We've seen this article, but there is a plenty of inaccuracies there. This is certainly not diplomatic correspondence. Diplomatic correspondence is something that operates regularly and does not deal with urgent documents concerning present-moment issues and daily agenda. The lack of knowledge about all the peculiarities of the diplomatic work certainly results in inaccuracies," Peskov said.

The Investigations Management Center of Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky sent Orkhan Dzhemal, Kirill Radchenko, and Alexander Rastorguyev to the war-torn country in the summer of 2018 to film a documentary about Russian military instructors working in the country. The journalists were found dead on July 30.

Russia has been conducting a criminal probe into the triple murder. Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said that the journalists had been traveling by car at night when they had been ambushed by Arab-speaking gunmen in a robbery attempt.