MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) - Moscow says that the western mass media reports regarding the situation surrounding Svoboda radio station correspondent David Satter are biased and that the U.S. reporter has seriously violated Russian migration law.
"We would like to clarify the following due to the biased reports in a number of western mass media outlets regarding the refusal to issue a visa to U.S. journalist David Arnold Satter," the Russian Foreign Ministry Press and Information department said in a statement on Tuesday.
Satter entered Russia on November 21, 2013 and according to existing migration law was obliged to come immediately to the Federal Migration Service Department for Moscow and to receive a multi-entry visa to stay in Russia and the Moscow correspondents' office of the radio station had been informed of this, the document said.
"Despite this, Satter applied to the Federal Migration Service Department for Moscow only on November 26, 2013, where he was refused a Russian multi-entry visa due to a serious violation of Russian migration law," the statement said.
Thus, "the U.S. citizen actually was in Russia illegally on November 22 to November 26, 2013," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The hearing of Moscow's Tagansky Court, during which Satter was found guilty of committing an administrative violation, was held on November 29, 2013, the document said. "He has admitted guilt. The court ruled to impose a fine and administrative deportation from Russia on him," the Foreign Ministry said.
Satter left Russia on December 4, 2013, the statement said.
"Upon the article 26 part 2 of the federal law 'On Exiting Russia and Entering Russia' he was banned entry to our country by the migration authorities for five years from the day of the deportation," the document said.
"This is not a unique case at all," the Foreign Ministry said. "As of now, about 500,000 foreign citizens have been banned entry to Russia for three to ten years for violating Russian federal migration laws," the statement said.
It has been reported that the Russian authorities denied Satter entry to the country. The reporter was the Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times newspaper between the late 1970s and early 1980s and then became a special correspondent of the Wall Street Journal on the Soviet Union. Satter came to Moscow in September 2013 to work as a consultant at the Svoboda (Freedom) radio station. The journalist went to Ukraine in December in order to obtain a new Russian visa, prior to which he was notified his visa was approved, however he was later told that his presence in Russia was not wanted.
The court ruled to deport Satter over the materials of the Russian Federal Migration Service, Moscow's Tagansky Court press office told Interfax on Tuesday. According to the court ruling, Satter was deported from Russia under the Russian Administrative Code Article 18.8 part 4 (violating rules of entering Russia or the regulating of staying in the country by a foreign citizen or a person without citizenship). The case was considered at the initiative of the Russian Federal Migration Service, the press office said.