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US ready to cooperate against adopted children abuse

The Russian Investigative Committee is probing into the cases of abuse against thirteen Russian children adopted in the United States
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, February 8 (Itar-Tass) – The U.S. Department of Justice has expressed readiness to cooperate with the Russian Investigative Committee to investigate crimes committed by U.S. adoptive parents against Russian children.

The United States expressed such readiness in reply to Investigative Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin’s letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the committee’s spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Friday.

The letter was handed over to representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice during the working meeting on February 6 and on the same day was submitted to the U.S. Attorney General, he said.

Bastrykin invited the U.S. Attorney General to dialogue on the investigation of crimes committed by American adoptive parents against Russian children. He recalled that the main investigation department of the Russian Investigative Committee is probing into the cases of abuse against thirteen Russian children adopted in the United States – Sergei Nakonechny (Luke Alexander Evans), Nikita Khoryakov (Zakari Louis Higier), Dima Yakovlev (Harrison Chase Dmitry), Ksenia Antonova (Ksenia Mae Blanford), Yelena, Sergei, Leonid and Kristina Zhivodrov (O’Brien Yelena Maibusch, O’Brien Sergey Maibusch, O’Brien Leonid Maibusch, and O’Brien Kristina Maibusch), Danila Krichun (Daniel Alexander Sweeney), Ilya Kargyntsev (Dykstra Isaac Jonathan), Anna Pochetnaya (Logan Anna Higginbotham), Ivan Skorobogatov (Craver Nathaniel Michael), and Maxim Babayev (Kaleb Maxim Traylor).

Meanwhile, the problem of violence against Russian children adopted by American families and deeper cooperation in investigating eight criminal cases topped the agenda of the first meeting of the working group of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice that took place in Washington on Thursday.

The working group was set up by Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during the latter’s visit to Moscow in May 2012.

The Russian side was represented at the meeting by experts of the main international and legal cooperation department of the Prosecutor-General’s Office.

The next meeting with U.S. counterparts to discuss problems in international and legal cooperation will take place in Moscow in autumn.