MOSCOW, August 9./TASS/. Law enforcement agencies of the Central African Republic (CAR) have confirmed their readiness to receive Russian investigators and provide access to the site where three Russian journalists were killed, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.
"In response to a request by the Russian Investigative Committee, the director of the CAR’s Gendarmerie confirmed to the Russian Embassy in Bangui that the Central African law enforcement agencies are open to full cooperation with Russian investigators," she said.
"They are ready to receive them in the CAR and to create necessary conditions for work, including ensuring their safety and organizing their visit to the scene of the crime. We state the readiness of the CAR authorities to cooperate most closely with the Russian side with an aim to investigate the circumstances of the tragedy," the diplomat went on to say.
She said Moscow is satisfied with the way cooperation with the CAR authorities advances on the issue.
"The Russian Foreign Ministry keeps the matter under special control, and will be reporting on the course of the investigation progressively as information comes, of course in cooperation with the Russian law enforcement agencies," she pledged.
The Russian embassy in the Central African Republic said on July 31 that three men had been found dead near the city of Sibut (300 kilometers north of the CAR’s capital city Bangui) on July 30. According to a UN spokesperson, the bodies were found near an abandoned car with numerous gunshots. The men had press cards featuring the names Kirill Radchenko, Alexander Rastorguyev and Orkhan Dzhemal.
The journalists entered the country with tourist visas to shoot a documentary. They arrived in Bangui on July 27 and set off for Deko and further north to Kaga-Bandoro on a jeep driven by a CAE national. They were seized and killed near Sibut of July 30, according to the local radio. The driver survived.
On August 5, the bodies were airlifted to Russia.