Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed on Tuesday media reports claiming that Russian diplomats in the Central African Republic (CAR) did not act fast enough in the wake of last year's murder of three Russian journalists in the country, insisting that the envoys reacted to the killing as quickly as possible
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd January, 2019) Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed on Tuesday media reports claiming that Russian diplomats in the Central African Republic (CAR) did not act fast enough in the wake of last year's murder of three Russian journalists in the country, insisting that the envoys reacted to the killing as quickly as possible.
The Russian Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper claimed on Monday that Russian authorities had not been paying due attention to the investigation into the journalists' murder, basing its allegations on abstracts from the Russian Foreign Ministry's diplomatic correspondence. According to the outlet, Russian diplomats did not read the records of witness interviews until eight days after the crime.
"On what basis do they conclude that diplomats from the [Russian] embassy [in the CAR] first read the materials eight days after [the murder]? The diplomats ... were in touch with the CAR's law enforcement agencies from the first hours after receiving information about the incident, constantly contacted the CAR's official structures to obtain new data, were in touch with the Russian Foreign Ministry and law enforcement agencies and regularly commented on the situation in the media ... The embassy did everything as quickly as possible in the given the circumstances," Zakharova told a briefing.
The spokeswoman stressed that the outlet did not contact either the Foreign Ministry or the Russian Investigative Committee for comments on the matter.
Russian nationals Kirill Radchenko, Alexander Rastorguev and Orkhan Dzhemal were found dead in the car last July. Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky's media outlet, Investigations Management Center, later confirmed that it had sent the three journalists to the republic to work on a documentary about Russian military instructors operating in the country.
Russian investigators believe that the journalists were killed by Arabic-speaking gunmen who wanted to rob the men.
