Russia Urges US to Fully Implement Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry's Human Rights Ombudsman, Moscow is calling on the US to implement the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty terms

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia has called on the United States to fully implement the terms of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the two countries, Russian Foreign Ministry's Human Rights Ombudsman Konstantin Dolgov said Wednesday.

"[Russia] continues to urge the United States not only to abandon the practice [of denying that the detention of the Russian citizens in third countries is not related to the US-Russia treaty], which is detrimental to Russian-US relations, but to begin, finally, to fully implement the treaty," Dolgov said.

He added that the treaty presupposed information exchange and contact between relevant agencies, particularly law enforcement agencies, in cases where one of the parties suspects a citizen of the another country of wrongdoing, especially of a criminal offense.

On Tuesday, Dolgov said the United States had issued 22 warrants for the detention of Russian citizens in different countries around the world and continues to ignore the 1999 bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which provides a mechanism for exchanging information on suspects.

Most recently, on December 23, Russian citizen Yuri Efremov was detained at a Finnish airport on a US warrant. This followed the arrest of Russian national Alexei Burkov in Israel on December 15, also on a US warrant, for alleged hacking activities.