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Russian businessman files demand for FBI to remove reward offer for information about him

Earlier, Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded that the FBI provided all available materials against him

Yevgeny Prigozhin Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Yevgeny Prigozhin

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. Russian businessman and Concord CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin sent a written request to FBI Director Christopher Wray, demanding to delete the $250,000 reward offer for information that would assist in Prigozhin’s arrest from the FBI website, Concord press service announced on its VK page Wednesday.

"The FBI must immediately cease offering a monetary reward to the public for my [Prigozhin’s] capture and delivery to the US, as this violates several principles of human rights under international law, and also violates Russian criminal law, regarding which I have made a report to Russian law enforcement authorities," says the letter, published in the VK social media.

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The company press service also stated that the FBI reward offer "not only violates international human rights principles, but also violates both Russian and US law."

According to the company lawyers, the Russian version of the FBI advertisement "intentionally distorts the nature of charges, by claiming that [Prigozhin] committed fraud against the US," while the actual indictment says that Prigozhin participated in a "conspiracy to defraud the United States," which, according to Concord, is not even a US criminal legislation language. Therefore, the company CEO demands not only to remove the reward offer, but also the Russian version of the advertisement.

On March 22, Prigozhin contacted the Investigative Committee of Russia over the FBI’s warrant, issued over Russia’s alleged meddling in the US elections. The businessman asked the Committee to initiate a criminal case against FBI Director Christopher Wray, US President Joe Biden, CIA Director William Burns and US Secretary of Justice Merrick Garland. Earlier, Prigozhin demanded that the FBI provided all available materials against him, stating his readiness to compensate all copying expenses.

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