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US may send official request under 1999 agreement to interrogate Russians — Putin

On Friday, the US Justice Department issued an indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers as part of investigation into alleged foreign interference in the US presidential vote

HELSINKI, July 16. /TASS/. US Special Counsel Robert Mueller may request an authority to interrogate Russian citizens facing charges in the United States under the 1999 agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference on Monday after his talks with US President Donald Trump in the Finnish capital city Helsinki.

On Friday, the US Justice Department issued an indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers within the framework of the investigation, which U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller leads, into alleged foreign interference in the US presidential election in 2016 .

"As for these 12 alleged officers of our intelligence services. I know nothing about that so far. I need to learn what the whole thing is about. But the president posed this question to me," he said.

"Russia and the United States have an agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal cases that was signed in 1999," the president recalled noting that the document was very effective.

"At the request of foreign states, we open 100-150 criminal cases in Russia. A few years ago, a [Russian] former nuclear energy minister was extradited from the United States to Russia and sentenced by a Russian court," Putin pointed out. "It is a functioning treaty and that treaty stipulates certain procedures of joint work."

"We can suggest that your commission led by Special Counsel Mueller… He can, under this agreement, send an official request to us to interrogate those people he thinks to be guilty of committing these offenses," Putin stressed.

"Our prosecutors and detectives can do the questioning and submit the documents to the United States," he said.

Moscow might make "a conciliatory gesture," he added.

"We can allow US officials, including that commission, to attend the questioning," Putin suggested.

 

Browder Case

Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that Moscow would raise the question "that the steps should be reciprocal," the president said, mentioning the case of Bill Browder, the founder of the Hermitage Capital Management

"Then we will expect from the American side to interrogate those officials, including special services agents, who we suspect of committing illegal activities in the Russian Federation, in the United States, in presence of our detectives," he emphasized. "What do I mean? The notorious case of Bill Browder, the founder of the Hermitage Capital Management."

"According to our investigation, a group of persons, who were Browder’s business partners, earned illegally more than one and a half billion dollars in Russia, without paying any taxes, neither in Russia nor in the United States, but they managed to transfer the money to the US," Putin said.

"They allocated $400 million for Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton’s presidential campaign. It is official data, available in their reports," he continued. "That’s their business and they might have done this legally, but the money had been gained illegally."

According to the president, Russia has grounds to assume that "some US special agents were facilitating those deals."

Cooperation in this field might be a beginning, he said.

"However, that is just a step. We can discuss how to expand our cooperation. Here you are. The options are possible and they are enshrined in relevant intergovernmental agreements," he concluded.

 

Investigation in Russia

The investigation of the Browder criminal case was completed in February 2017. As investigators believe, the defendants did not pay taxes from several companies, eventually making them bankrupt. These actions done by Browder and his business partner Cherkasov relate to 1996. Three branches of the Federal Tax Service’s Moscow Department are the affected parties in this case.

Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court earlier found Browder guilty in absentia of large-scale tax evasion estimated at more than three bln rubles ($48 mln) and sentenced him to nine years in prison. The same sentence was slapped on Browder’s business partner Ivan Cherkasov. In addition, the court upheld a lawsuit against Browder and Cherkasov worth 4.2 bln rubles ($67 mln).

The Russian Prosecutor General’s office has many times requested Interpol to arrest Browder.