MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax) - Moscow has attacked the United States for blacklisting a group of Russians including pop singer Grigory Leps (Lepsveridze) as members of an alleged crime ring.
"We expect that the American authorities will provide detailed explanations," Foreign Ministry human rights commissioner Konstantin Dolgov said in a statement posted on the ministry's website, www.mid.ru, on Thursday.
"We would like to stress in this connection that grievances with Russian nationals should be brought up with Russian law enforcement via established procedures instead of trying once again to make extraterritorial use of one's national legislation. Unfortunately, there are more than enough examples of open discrimination against our fellow citizens, including groundless visa and financial sanctions," Dolgov said.
"The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strictly follows the principle that whether some Russian nationals are guilty of anything or not is a matter that must be dealt with in our country, within the framework of the Russian legal and judicial system," he said.
"This means that it is in principle an unacceptable situation that the United States unilaterally assumes such a role, arbitrarily sticking labels and violating the fundamental principle of presumed innocence. We will not put up with this. We will give our fellow citizens consular and legal support if necessary," the commissioner said.
It was reported on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Finance had announced the inclusion in control lists of six people on suspicion of membership in the Eurasian criminal syndicate Brotherly Circle: Artur Badalyan, Grigory Lepsveridze, Vadim Lyalin, Sergei Moskalenko, Yakov Rybalsky, and Igor Shlykov. These people are suspected of connections with people named Vladislav Leontyev and Gafur Rakhimov, who are considered to be influential members of criminal groups and have been on the U.S. sanctions lists since February 2012.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Lyalin and Shlykov have Russian passports, Moskalenko is a citizen of Uzbekistan, and Rybalsky is a citizen of Israel. The department did not state the citizenship of Badalyan and Lepsveridze, stating Thailand as Lepsveridze's country of residence. The U.S. authorities are accusing Lepsveridze of working as a courier for Leontyev.
In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama classified the syndicate Brotherly Circle as "a significant transnational organized criminal group" and ordered the Treasury Department to sabotage their global criminal operations.
The inclusion of a person in the blacklists of the U.S. Treasury Department leads to the blocking of this person's assets in the U.S. and a ban on business contacts with him for people who live in the U.S.
Grigory Leps is a well-known performer, composer, producer, an Honored Artist of Russia, and winner of the awards Shanson Goda, Golden Gramophone, and Song of the Year.