MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/. Russia has granted consular access to a recently detained Japanese journalist, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on October 13 that a correspondent for Japan’s Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper in the Far Eastern city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk had been detained on suspicion of espionage. The journalist was arrested in the Sakhalin Region shortly before his planned departure from Russia and taken to Moscow. Moscow’s Lefortovsky District Court ordered his detention.
"We have a consular convention with Japan, signed many years ago, which provides for consular access to detainees. Representatives of the Japanese embassy were granted such access on Monday," Rudenko told reporters in response to a question.
The deputy foreign minister noted that the journalist was "the target of a criminal investigation under certain articles.".