News

Rostov Region Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has started an investigation against 11 officials of Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice (DEA), 4 officials of the National Security Agency of Liberia (RKNSA), and some other unidentified individuals. They are suspected of crimes under paragraphs “a”, “c” of part 2 of article 126 of the RF Penal Code (abduction committed by a group of people in a previous conspiracy using violence dangerous for life and health and threats to use such violence), part 2 of article 302 (compulsion of a suspect (accused) to give evidence by using threats and other illegal actions by a person engaged in the inquest using violence, humiliation and tortures).

According to investigators, on 28 May 2010, a citizen of Russia Konstantin Yaroshenko was kidnapped by the suspects from a parking lot near the Royal Hotel in the city of Monrovia, Liberia. The pretext was that Yaroshenko together with other individuals had dealt drugs and had been preparing to illegally transport the drugs in the USA. After having been kidnapped Yaroshenko was delivered to an unknown place in Liberia and was illegally held there until 30 May 2010. He was denied to see a consul or a lawyer, was subject to tortures and humiliation in order to make him confess to the crime.

Later the officials of the DEA illegally transported Yaroshenko on a plane from Liberia to the USA, in the city of New York without following any compulsory legal procedures under international laws and legislation of Liberia that regulate extradition and deportation of foreign citizens from the said country and without notifying the diplomatic representation of the Russian Federation. In New York Yaroshenko was put in a local prison, then tried and sentenced to a long time in prison. At present Yaroshenko is serving his sentence in the USA.

At the moment the investigators are questioning Yaroshenko’s family and those who provided him with legal advice during his prosecution in the USA. In addition, the investigators have sent international legal requests in competent bodies of the USA, Liberia and a number of other countries in order to find out all the circumstances of the abduction.