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Russian diplomat expresses resentment over situation around Yaroshenko

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MOSCOW, February 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov has expressed resentment to the minister counselor of the United States embassy in Moscow over the aggravating situation around Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a long prison term in the United States on drug smuggling charges, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

“The Russian side expressed resentment over the fact that the emergency medical examination promised to Yaroshenko by the administration of the Fort Dix jail [in New Jersey where the pilot is serving his term] turned to be a formal and superficial onceover and its results were communicated neither to Yaroshenko, nor to his lawyer, nor to Russian diplomats,” the ministry said.

“It looks like the prison authorities are purposefully ignoring all complaints coming from Konstantin Yaroshenko, his lawyer and Russian diplomats, thus wasting precious time and imperiling the life of our citizen,” the ministry noted. “The Russian diplomat told the US representative that the responsibility for the health of our citizen in this situation rested entirely with the American side.”

“We urge the United States authorities to take urgent measures to overcome actual sabotage of the Fort Dix administration and to see to it that Konstantin Yaroshenko receives a professional medical examination involving Russian medics, of which we have asked earlier,” he ministry stressed. “Kosntantin Dolgov and Russian specialists are ready to fly to the United States to visit Konstantin Yaroshenko the soonest possible. We expect the American side’s cooperation in the organization of the Russian delegation’s visit.”

Yaroshenko was sentenced by a court in New York on September 7, 2011 after he was found guilty of complicity in a plot to smuggle a major batch of cocaine. He was brought to the United States from Liberia, where he was arrested on May 28, 2010. Undercover operatives of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration exposed him of alleged criminal intent. It was the first incident in which American secret services seized a Russian national in a third country and covertly brought him to the U.S.

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