MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax) - Russia has dismissed allegations that it failed to give the United States enough help in measures that might have averted the Boston Marathon bombings.
"An article in the April 9 issue of The New York Times caught our attention - it set out the main points of an 'internal report' of the U.S. intelligence community on actions by special services before and during the terrorist act in Boston. Citing unnamed sources, it is claimed that that document, the non-classified part of which is planned to be published on April 15, accuses the Russian side of uncooperativeness," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.
"It is difficult for us to understand the reason for the new dissemination of such inventions if, a while ago, we had a detailed discussion on all circumstances of this case with the American side, including through the information exchange channels of relevant services," he said.
"Long before the Boston terrorist act, Russian specialized authorities passed over to their U.S. counterparts information on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, which was not properly taken into account for various reasons. A special briefing was held for members of Congress who visited Moscow in June last year at which they received answers to their questions," Lukashevich said.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that, against the backdrop of the anti-Russian campaign launched in the United States due to the developments in Ukraine and Crimea, someone is trying to whitewash the American special services that overlooked the plotting of the terrorist act. It appears that this involves an attempt to blame us for this mistake. If this is the case, it is an undignified method that would further undermine confidence that is so essential for tackling our common tasks in combating international terrorism," the spokesman said.
The New York Times article said: "The Russian government declined to provide the F.B.I. with information about one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects that would most likely have led to more extensive scrutiny of him at least two years before the attack, according to an inspector general's report."
"Russian officials had told the F.B.I. in 2011 that the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 'was a follower of radical Islam and a strong believer' and that Mr. Tsarnaev 'had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country's region to join unspecified underground groups,'" the article said.
"But after an initial investigation by the F.B.I., the Russians declined several requests for additional information about Mr. Tsarnaev," the paper said, citing the report.
"It was only after the bombing occurred last April that the Russians shared with the F.B.I. the additional intelligence, including information from a telephone conversation the Russian authorities had intercepted between Mr. Tsarnaev and his mother in which they discussed Islamic jihad," it said.
Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar are suspected of carrying out the attack, which killed three people and left more than 200 injured.