MOSCOW. July 9 (Interfax) - Russian State Duma deputy Valery Seleznyov, whose son Roman has been detained by the U.S., has said he is ready to immediately fly to the U.S. if this is necessary.
"I would have flown right away, but there is no sense in this so far; as soon as there is sense, I'll fly immediately," Seleznyov told Interfax on Tuesday.
The parliamentarian described the incident as "abduction," saying that human rights abuses are typical for the U.S., which in this particular case "has trampled upon all rights, feeling its impunity."
"Russian citizen Roman Seleznyov was abducted by people posing as U.S. Secret Service officers at the airport of Male in the Maldive Islands, where he was vacationing with his female partner and child," says a statement by Roman Seleznyov's family shared with Interfax.
"Roman was detained by Maldivian authorities before his family's very eyes supposedly because of some issues with his passport, after which Americans appeared, who seized him and took him on a private plane toward the Philippines and further to the Island of Guam, where there is a U.S. military base," the document says.
Seleznyov has a disability after becoming a terrorist attack victim in Morocco in 2011, in which he sustained a serious head injury and underwent surgery to have a plate fitted to his skull, the statement says.
"As a result of this operation, Roman needs to avoid contact between his head and water and adhere to a set of restrictions. The family of the abducted Russian citizen is concerned about his health, as Roman needs permanent access to medial supervision," the document says.
Seleznyov's family said Roman had been deprived of access to legal assistance of proper quality and to a Russian consul. "His abduction grossly violates international law and the Maldivian law, and it also violates human rights and the right to legal protection," the statement says.
"Roman Seleznyov is State Duma deputy Valery Seleznyov's son from the first marriage. Roman grew up in a different family, but Valery Seleznyov, as his father, intends to take all the necessary steps to protect his son's rights and legal interests," it says.
A number of media outlets reported earlier that Roman Seleznyov had been arrested in the U.S. on charges of stealing data of credit cards belonging to hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in commenting on the matter that it viewed the incident as an unfriendly step on the U.S. part. "We view what happened as Washington's another unfriendly step. It is not the first time that the U.S. has actually resorted to kidnapping a Russian citizen, ignoring the 1999 bilateral treaty on mutual legal assistance on criminal matters. The same, in particular, happened to Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been forcibly brought to the U.S. from third countries and convicted of dubious charges," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary.
Roman Seleznyov's name made headlines three years ago, when he was seriously injured in a 2011 bomb attack in a Marrakech cafe, in which 16 people were killed and 23 others injured. Seleznyov underwent surgery in Moscow, and his condition was then described as serious.